RENEWABLE ENERGY
![Text Box: Introduction
Climate change is one of the biggest current issues facing world society. It is mostly due to global warming, from the excessive volumes of carbon dioxide ‘trapping’ thermal energy from the Sun in the Earth’s atmosphere (see Fig 1). Much of this carbon dioxide was produced by power stations, as well as motor cars. Many countries, however, are now looking to renewable energy sources, which barely cause this environmental problem. Not only do they produce minimal amounts of the gas, but they will also never run out, unlike coal and oil. Renewable energy can be described as natural, repetitive energy flows, such as wind. Depending on the source, the energy that they have may originate from the Sun, or the gravitational attraction of the Moon, for example [1]. As there are many different renewable energy sources, most places in the world would have the conditions to suit at least one of them. However, many developing countries may find new renewable technology particularly expensive.](webproject_files/image009.gif)
QUICK
LINKS
Fig 1 – Simple model of the
greenhouse effect (http://www.environmentalsociety.ca/issues/climate/images/greenhouse-effect.jpg)
Forms of
renewable energy
Renewable energy sources include wind, geothermal and tidal
to name but a few. The way these three particular examples harness energy will
be looked in depth in the following pages. They each have their advantages and
disadvantages depending on the conditions, such as weather and location.
