Sustainable Energy

So what exactly is Sustainable Energy?

Sustainable energy, also known as green or renewable energy is energy that is needed now, but that is obtained from a source which will not impact on future generations and their ability to produce energy. There are many types of sustainable energy including solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectricity, tidal energy, geothermal energy and we can even obtain energy from bacteria. We have already mentioned solar energy, so lets take a brief look at some other sustainable energy sources:

Wind energy
Wind energy is one of the types of sustainable energy and is basically the process of harnessing the power of the wind. This is not a modern idea, in fact the power of the wind has been used for thousands of years, and sailors caught on to this very early and started constructing large material sails to capture and use the wind to power their ships. Most famously in Holland, but also in lots of other countries wind power has been used to turn windmills to grind grain. If you drive around the countryside now you may suddenly come over the brow of a hill to be greeted by rows and rows of modern wind turbines all spinning away in unison. It is the power of the wind which causes the blades of the turbine to turn, which then causes the shaft to spin, which is connected to a generator and the kinetic energy of the spinning shaft is transformed into electrical energy.

Geothermal Energy
Geothermal energy is thermal sustainable energy which is created and stored in this planet that we call home, Earth. The Romans realised the power of geothermal energy and used them to heat up their famous Roman baths. Nowadays 70 countries use geothermal heating and 24 countries use geothermal energy sources to turn turbines and make electrical power. There are 3 main power stations for using sustainable geothermal energy and they are:

Dry Steam power stations - these are the oldest and simplest stations which use steam directly from geothermal springs to turn their turbines.

Flash Steam power stations - these take high pressure hot water from deep within the earth and dump this into tanks containing colder fluid, the resulting steam is used to turn the turbines. These are the most commonly used geothermal power stations Binary Cycle power stations - These are the most recent design, and can produce steam from temperatures as low as 57C, and work in a similar fashion to flash steam power stations but at a lower temperature.

Hydroelectricity
Is the most widely used form of sustainable energy. There are various ways to generate hydroelectricity, but they all rely on the movement of water caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. Some of the current methods for generating hydroelectricity are:

Dams - The most common method of generating hydroelectricity is from the use of dams. We've all seen dams and he idea behind them is that the potential energy caused by the imbalance between water pressure, volume and height on each side. When water moves from one side to the other a turbine is turned and electricity is produced. Run of the river - these use the natural flow of a body of water to move turbines to produce sustainable energy. Pumped Storage - this method uses two different reservoirs at different heights, and involves pumping water to the highest reservoir when there is an excess of electricity, and then allowing that water to pass back to the lower reservoir, which turns the turbine, when electricity is needed. Tidal energy - Although not commonly used there are two main methods for producing sustainable energy for tidal power. The first is tidal steam generation, which use the movement of the tide, or its kinetic energy, to turn turbines to produce electricity. The second is Tidal barrage, which acts similar to a dam and creates sustainable energy thanks to the difference in potential energy that exists between low and high tide.