17 Jun What is Green Energy and How to incorporate it in Your Life.
What is Green Energy?
The type of energy that is generated through natural resources – sunlight wind water is known as green energy. They must become the norm for they best cater to the evolving climate narratives. Most times green energy gets confused with renewable energy, let’s understand the difference.
We owe green energies to technological interventions and innovations such as solar energy, wind power, geothermal energy, biomass, and hydroelectric power. These technologies depend on renewable energy to be able to create green energy.
What Qualifies for Green Energy Essentially?
To qualify for green energy, the resource cannot be a pollutant by any means. Green energy sources are also equipped with the ability to naturally replenish themselves and also do not require damaging processes like mining and/or drilling operations.
Types of Green Energy
1. Solar Power
This is the most common form of renewable, green energy source that is produced utilizing the photovoltaic cells to capture sunlight best and convert it into electricity. Its usages can vary from heating the building to heating the water in the building. Due to the exponential rise in demand, solar power has become largely affordable and is being used by many households for all kinds of power requirements – like cooking and lighting up their gardens!
2. Wind Power
Around the offshore & higher altitude sites, wherein there are extreme and strong wind patterns registered, the flow is captured and converted to electricity via the turbines. The only drawback is that geography predetermines its relevance.
3. Hydroelectric Power
The flow of water in various water bodies (rivers, streams, dams) is captured to produce energy. Hydropower is very diverse with regard to its workability – can work in pipes, dams, rain, tides, rivers, and even with evaporated water!
4. Geothermal Energy
This type requires the earth’s crust to get drilled into, which again poses environmental concerns, but it makes for an abundant resource once the crust is accessed. Geothermal energy has already been in use for a thousand plus years for bathing in hot springs. The same resource also has the potential for its steam to turn turbines and generate electricity.
What’s promising to learn is that if geothermal energy is successfully tapped into, it has the capacity to produce ten times more energy than coal.
5. Biomass
Much like geothermal energy, biomass also needs to be carefully extracted in order to be called entirely green, and also they do contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, just far lower than petroleum-based fuels. Herein, resources like wood waste, sawdust, and organic matter (the combustible type) are used to generate energy.
In terms of efficiency, green energies can be ranked as follows. However, they are prone to developmental changes.
1. Wind Power
2. Geothermal
3. Hydropower
4. Nuclear
5. Solar Power
Where to Incorporate Green Energy in Your Daily Living?
1. Heating and cooling in buildings: From solar water heaters to biomass-fuelled boilers and extracting direct heat from the geothermal which can also be used for cooling!
2. Industrial processes: Renewable electricity that is generated via biomass can be very effectively utilized in industrial processes. Hydrogen now happens to be a large provider of power to the industries of cement, iron & steel, and other chemical industries.
3. Transportation: The automotive makes for an obvious example as they are run entirely on electrification advances. Aerospace and construction are other industries and sectors that exhibit potential for electrification.
Why is Using and Investing in Green Energy Important?
1. The negative effects of fossil fuels are replaced with components that are more suited for environmental usage and safety.
2. They emit way lesser greenhouse gases, contributing to lesser pollution, all by being readily available too.
3. In the post-pandemic landscape, they guarantee better air quality, a non-negotiable for most demographies.
4. As green energy generation is mostly dependent on geographies and is produced locally, it is unaffected by market fluctuations or any geopolitical crisis.
5. It also reflects positively on the economy vis-a-vis job creation. The green energy sector has effectively generated 11 million jobs worldwide in 2018, with the number only growing since and growing exponentially. Moreover, it represents low colts solutions for the energy needs of many parts of the world, especially the developing world.
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