Sources of Energy

Introduction:

As you have learned, energy is the ability to do work. By doing work, you can move things, change things, and make things happen. Energy is one of your everyday needs, something you never could do without. All energy sources have advantages and disadvantages. Think of all the way you use energy. It warms your home in winter or cools it in summer. It supplies heat for warm showers and washing machines. Energy makes stoves, refrigerators, computers and television to work. Office buildings and factories depend on energy too. Like your home these building need heating, cooling, and lighting. Without realizing it people use large amounts of energy everyday. Fuels supply the energy needed by buses, trucks, cars, and airplanes. People also use energy to grow and ship foods. Electricity is a familiar form of energy. Every time you turn on a television or flip a light switch, you use electrical energy. If you multiply the amount of energy you use by the number of people in your neighborhood, you can imagine how much energy people use. Just think what would happen if we ever ran out of energy? The electricity people use is not a source of energy. It is, rather, a convenient way to move energy around. It does not come from mines, as coal and uranium do, or from wells, as oil and natural gas do. People must use energy sources to make electricity. There will always be a great need for energy. Because of this need, some sources are beginning to run out. The day may come when there is no enough gasoline for cars, because the world is running out of petroleum, oil where gas is made. So a great way of conservation must be made and practiced by people today as consumption of men increases to avoid energy shortage. According to the Law of conservation of energy, energy can neither be created nor it can be destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to the other, so where the energy does comes from? Energy is stored in the nature in various sources and in various forms. The sources of energy available in the nature are divided into two main types: renewable energy sources and non-renewable energy sources. The energy which replenishes itself quickly and which is available in never ending supply is called renewable energy. The energy sources that cannot be recreated and which go on depleting as we use them are non-renewable energy.

Sources of Energy Renewable Energy are those energy sources that can be regenerated by natural processes. are those that either do not run out or can be replaced in a few years. energy whose sources can easily supply or replenish the current demand or usage.

They replace themselves or are continuously present as a feature of the solar system. In its various forms, it can be derived directly from the sun or from heat generated deep within the earth such as solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal resources. They are renewable resources because they are continuously available. A. Solar Energy It is the energy that which comes directly from the sun. Solar energy can be used to make electricity and to heat water. The sun is often mentioned as the ultimate answer to the worlds energy problems. It provides a continuous supply of energy that far exceeds the worlds demands. The major problem with solar energy is its intermittent nature. It is only available during the day when it is sunny and less available in cloudy weather. All systems that use solar energy must store or use supplementary sources of energy when sunlight is not available. Solar technologies are characterized as either: active solar and passive solar depending on the way they capture, convert, and distribute solar energy. 1. In a passive solar technology, the suns energy is converted directly into heat for use at the site where it is collected. It is a means of using sunlight for useful energy without the use of active mechanical system. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. 2. In an active solar technology, the suns energy is converted into heat, but the heat must be transferred from the collection area to the place of use. It converts solar energy into usable light or store heat for future use. It includes the use of solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. B. Wind Energy The term Wind Energy describes effectively the process of generating energy using the wind. The kinetic (motion) energy in the wind is transformed by wind turbines into mechanical power. This power can in turn be exploited for tasks like pumping water or grinding grain or be fed into a generator to generate electricity, powering homes, schools and businesses. It is one of the fastest growing types of alternative energy used today. Since humans first took to the sea in primitive sailboats, wind has used for its awesome power. For centuries, windmills have been used to aid milling and grinding. But today, humans harness renewable wind power by connecting modern windmills or turbines to power-collection systems. Energy the wind turbines harvest from the motion caused by wind is what is called wind energy. In a way, wind energy is a form of solar energy as wind is caused by uneven heating of the atmosphere. As for flow pattern, wind is influenced by the earth terrain, vegetative cover and bodies of water. The mechanism of wind turbines can be explained as the opposite of a fan. The fan moves to generate wind while the wind turbine lets itself moved by the wind to create kinetic energy. There are two types of wind turbines, the horizontal axis type which looks like the classic windmills and the vertical axis turbine. Most used wind turbines these days are the horizontal axis turbines. C. Geothermal Energy

Super-heated water or steam from earth's interior utilized in running the turbines of a conventional power plant to generate electricity. Such plants are usually small and suitable only for the needs of a local community. Typically found near geysers or tectonic plate boundaries, geothermal plants now exist in dozens of countries around the world. Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, and the US are among the few countries having the right-sized geothermal energy fields. Geothermal plants are responsible for over 15% of all energy production. D. Hydro-electric power For centuries, people used the energy of falling water to do work. It is made by turning the energy of moving water into electricity. Water from a reservoir flows rapidly through a dam. This fast flowing water spins a turbine which generates electricity. The sun is responsible for the energy in falling water. Energy from the sun drives the water cycle. In the water cycle, the water evaporates from the earths surface and falls again as rain. Rivers carry excess water from land to oceans. Most hydro-electric power plants, which generally include dams, are built along river banks. It is an important source of energy in mountainous areas with a high rainfall. E. Biomass Energy It is defined by any organic materials that can be burned and used as a source of fuel. Wood being the main source of biomass such as saw-dust or any type of waste from wood is processed to make wood-pellets and used as fuel for wood pellet boilers and stoves. Farm waste such as cow manure is processed into biomass to form biogas. It can be used in bottled gas for gas cooking appliances. Crops such as switch-grass, corn and sugarcane are produced to form ethanol which can be used to fuel vehicles and presently are so, to great success. Waste heat harnessed by waste-to-energy plants can generate electricity for heating buildings. Among energy sources referred to as biofuels is domestic rubbish. About 15% of municipal solid waste is burned.Biomass can further be broken down into more specific categorys which have different types of uses. Biomass that comes from wood keeps its form and is formed into pellet size uniformity to be used for biomass heating systems and electricity. F. Biofuel Fuel produced from renewable biomass material, commonly used as an alternative, cleaner fuel source. Biofuels are a wide range of fuels which are in some way derived from biomass. The term covers solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases. Biofuels are gaining increased public and scientific attention, driven by factors such as oil price spikes, the need for increased energy security, and concern over greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Biofuel, such as ethanol or biodiesel, is an area currently undergoing considerable research. When looking at the green clumpy mass cluttering up a backyard pond, it is difficult to imagine that it could power a car. Algae biodiesel, however, is becoming the focus of considerable attention one of the newer renewable sources of energy. Algae, easily grown and produced in lakes or laboratory settings, may be one of the answers to depleted stocks of fossil fuels. Non-renewable Energy

A non-renewable resource is a natural resources which cannot be replaced once they have been used or the energy sources that cannot be recreated and which go on depleting as we use them. They are also the resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate. These resources often exist in a fixed amount and finite, or are consumed much faster than they can be produced by the nature. At present most of the needs of the world are fulfilled by non-renewable sources of energy. The most extensively used non-renewable energy sources are the fossil fuels that consist of oil, natural gas, and coal. Other problems occur with the use of fossil fuels includes the pollution it will cause. When they burn, the fossil fuels release harmful waste products-or- pollutants-into the air. These pollutants include compounds of oxygen joined with nitrogen and sulfur, carbon monoxide, and small particles. In addition, it can damage buildings. It can also harm plant and animal life. It can trigger health problems such as pneumonia, emphysema, and other lung illnesses. Burning fossil fuels also releases carbon dioxide which might change the earths climate. A. Oil It is a kind of fossil fuel. It is a thick, dark liquid which is made of hydrocarbons. They probably originated from microscopic marine organisms. When these organisms died and accumulated on the ocean bottom and were buried by sediments, their breakdown released oil droplets. Gradually the muddy sediment formed rock called shale, which contained dispersed oil droplets. It is made up largely of silt mixed with a kind of matter known as kerogen. Extraction from shale is difficult because the oil is not concentrated. An area containing reserves of oil is called an oil field. Oil and oil products are sometimes called petroleum. The well pumped up the oil from deep underground to the surface. It can be transported from one nation to another or within one nation. The energy released by burning can be used to move vehicles or to heat water and buildings. But burning oil causes air pollution and water pollution. It can take many years for an area to recover from the effects of oil spill. B. Coal It is the worlds most abundant fossil fuel, but it supplies only about 27 percent of the energy used in the world. It varies in quality and is generally classified in three categories: lignite, bituminous, and anthracite. Lignite coal also referred to as brown coal; is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for electric power generation. Bituminous coal is the most widely used because it is the easiest to mine and the most abundant. It supplies about 20 percent of the worlds energy requirements. Coal is primarily used for electric power generation and other industrial uses. For most uses, anthracite coal is the most desirable because it furnishes more energy than the other grades and is the cleanest burning. But anthracite is not as

common and is usually more expensive because it is found at greater depths and is difficult to obtain.

PLANTS CONTAINING CARBON COMPOUNDS

WHEN PLANTS DIE, THEY ONLY PARTIALLY DECAY

FOR A MILLION OF YEARS, PLANTS COMPRESSED FORMING PEAT

COMPRESSION AND HEAT FORCES IN THE EARTH OVER TIME TRANSFORMING PEAT TO COAL

Man has realized that coal is a carbon-based mineral that can be used as fuel. This is a result of a half a million to even a several million years of compression and heat applied to decaying plants growing in bogs or swampy areas. C. Natural Gas The main ingredient in natural gas is methane, a gas (or compound) composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. Millions of years ago, the remains of plants and animals (diatoms) decayed and built up in thick layers. This decayed matter from plants and animals is called organic material it was once alive. Over time, the sand and silt changed to rock, covered the organic material, and trapped it beneath the rock. Pressure and heat changed some of this organic material into coal, some into oil (petroleum) and some into natural gas tiny bubbles of odorless gas. D. Nuclear Energy It is energy in the nucleus (core) of an atom. Atoms are tiny particles that make up every object in the universe. There is enormous energy in the bonds that hold atoms together. Nuclear energy is released by the nucleus of an atom as the result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or radioactive decay.

Bibliography: Books: Arturo N. Villegas; Physics: a Conceptual Approach; Academe Publishing House; 1993

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