Renewable Energy: Harnessing the Power of the Earth

28 Aug

The earth has an abundance of natural resources. There are countless animal and plant species out there, and many have yet to be discovered. But given this thought, people should still be vigilant about their conservation. You may be a tiny speck in this world, but that does not mean that you can waste away what it is offering however you want.

One of the resources that people find to be a necessity is energy. It can be the flame or heat that you need to cook your food or the electricity that powers your home appliances. For the latter, the majority of the population currently relies on grid power. These are linked to power plants that have their own larger-scale power source. This can be the expendable kind, like fossil-fuel-based products or nuclear energy. But if you want to use up something that is friendly to the environment, you should go for renewable energy. Solar power falls under this category. Sunlight is a ubiquitous resource that has to be used by more people. Aside from the sun though, there are other ways to generate electricity, and these all come from this planet.

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Wind

There are many elements in this planet that react to each other, and these could build up natural phenomena like typhoons and hurricanes. These are created from the changes in temperature, which in turn form wind, which can be used to produce energy. If you have ever used a hand-cranked radio, it basically uses a similar principle, just scaled up to larger proportions. The motion of the crank or the spinning blades of a windmill allows the generation of electricity. This is purely based on the kinetic energy that it has captured.

Geothermal

Underneath the earth’s crust lies hot rocks called magma, which you could also find in volcanoes. This forms the basis of geothermal energy, and the heat that it generates can be converted into electricity. Power plants based on this are basically structures that have almost direct access to some of the hottest parts of this planet. They then store that energy which is later on distributed to power grids nearby.

Biomass

You may not know it, but you already could be using biomass for energy. If you are able to produce heat using coal, dried grass, or any byproduct of nature, that means you have used biomass. There are other materials that can be converted into a fuel form, and these would come from unlikely sources like your trash and waste materials.

Hydropower

You already know that more than two-thirds of the earth is made up of water. That is a lot of volume, and its fluidity allows forces like waves to happen. This can be harnessed like how it is done with wind power, where kinetic energy is used to brute force its way into a turbine to make it spin and generate electricity.

If you thought that the only power source you can rely on is the grid, this should open your eyes to what options you have out there. There are natural ways for you to generate energy, and it all comes from this planet. Make your contribution by lowering your carbon footprint and maintaining values that promote cleanliness.