- 10 examples of renewable resources. Solar energy. Solar energy is a perfect example of a renewable resource. Our planet receives in a single hour the same amount of energy from the sun that the entire world’s population uses in one year!
- Nonrenewable vs. Renewable Energy Use Energy is required to run households, industrial units, transport, and for the production of goods and services in their basic as well as advanced form. With respect to its potential of depletion and reproduction ability, energy is divided into two categories, non-renewable and renewable energy.
There are nine major areas of energy resources. They fall into two categories: nonrenewable and renewable.
Nonrenewable energy resources, like coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas, are available in limited supplies. This is usually due to the long time it takes for them to be replenished.
Renewable resources are replenished naturally and over relatively short periods of time. The five major renewable energy resources are solar, wind, water (hydro), biomass, and geothermal. Since the dawn of humanity people have used renewable sources of energy to survive — wood for cooking and heating, wind and water for milling grain, and solar for lighting fires. A little more than 150 years ago people created the technology to extract energy from the ancient fossilized remains of plants and animals.
Renewable vs nonrenewable energy pros and cons. Energy is an important aspect of every living organism. Organisms need to obtain energy from food to carry out their daily work.
These super-rich but limited sources of energy (coal, oil, and natural gas) quickly replaced wood, wind, solar, and water as the main sources of fuel. Fossil fuels make up a large portion of today’s energy market, although promising new renewable technologies are emerging. Careers in both the renewable and nonrenewable energy industries are growing; however, there are differences between the two sectors. They each have benefits and challenges, and relate to unique technologies that play a role in our current energy system.
For a range of reasons, from the limited amount of fossil fuels available to their effects on the environment, there is increased interest in using renewable forms of energy and developing technologies to increase their efficiency. This growing industry calls for a new workforce.
This infographic is part of our collection. Discussion Questions for Exploring Careers in Renewable Energy. What are some ways that humans used renewable resources for energy centuries or even millennia ago?. Research what kind(s) of renewable energy your state produces. Why is your state an optimal location for that form of renewable energy?.
Choose a renewable energy resource. Brainstorm three to five types of jobs in that field.
Research a new and innovative technology in each of the renewable energy categories. What are the benefits of the new technologies?
Renewable Vs Nonrenewable Resources Activity
What are the risks? Which area (solar, wind, etc.) sounds the most exciting to you?. Take a look at the. Which renewable do you think has the potential for the most growth as a source of energy for the U.S.?
What factors are involved? Links to Learn More., U.S. Department of Energy website — The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy supports education and workforce development. Find out about clean energy jobs, explore careers, and find internships in the renewable energy industry., Green 360 website — Get an insider view from people who work in the field of renewable energy. Hear about what a typical day is like for someone in the industry, learn about up-and-coming careers, find opportunities to get involved, and more with this blog., Saxum infographics — A series of infographics provides insight on our country’s energy production and consumption of both renewable and nonrenewable energy sources. — Find hundreds of digital media resources about renewable energy for use in the classroom from public media stations across the country.
NGSS Correlations. Performance Expectation: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity. HS-ESS3-1. Disciplinary Core Idea: Resource availability has guided the development of human society.
HS-ESS3.A: Natural Resources. Science & Engineering Practices: Constructing explanations and designing solutions. The more I think about the shortsightedness of PBS the more tightly wound I become. There are so many new and exciting things in the world of energy production and storage that it sickens me to see PBS stuck on shortsighted.
Here’s what’s available for development. 48+ BLACK SWANS With updates, 11/21/14 When you take into account the amount of money that is spent on energy in the US annually, approximately 6-8 Trillion dollars, that’s, 200 quads at an equivalent of 8 Billion gallons of gas per Quad. These numbers were extracted from the Energy Information Agency, the EIA. They did not make it easy to get to.
There were far to many different units of measurement used, BTU’s to Mega Joules, and everything in between, along with missing and irrelevant data, but it has been verified by at least one other independent analyst. It is easy to see how much resistance the oil companies and the Nuclear power folks might muster. Much of this may be new to you. I understand that, but please consider these things. You want innovation that will change the face of the planet? I think that at last count 656 patent applications can be viewed for LENR alone.
On another note I added number 17, not because it generated excess energy, but because it’s just damned neat that plasma is so easy to generate. Additionally there is much info available through a DOE sanctioned site on all of these birds. Also for papers and abstracts. And here is a website put together by the leaders of the LENR Pack, Come on Already!!
It may very well be that not all of these advances will ever come to fruitiion. However at the rate new approaches to energy production are coming to the surface I am reminded of an old adage, “What man can conceive, man can achieve.”. About 1 per month is showing up currently. I am betting that at least 1/2 of these birds can power a new and extraordinarily interesting world. Maybe all of them!
Do not dismiss these birds. Now here is the deal, this rattles me a little. I ran actoss a presentation made to the Nobel Prize People on Thermionics in 1929. He was over unity. In that paper the term “Perpetuum Mobile” was used. I thought I would google it. People around the world have built so many interesting devices, motors, that ran all by themselves, using MANY curious phenomena Not the least of which is this one.
The big money guys do not give one damn dam about you, me, or the rest of mankind. They may take big write offs because they put on an obfuscatory show of being benefactors, but they cling to that which is killing the earth. I’m a little rattled! Relatred technologies are color coded.
It’s gotta be on this list, and the list is growing 1. Cold Fusion, also known as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions, Controlled Electron Capture Reaction. These technologies are all about forcing Hydrogen or Deuterium atoms into the crystal lattice of a metal such as Nickel. Once the crystal lattice of the metal nano powder has been sufficently saturated with Hydrogen excess heat is generated. This is not hard to see, as everything is still vibrating, but now all the atoms are in much closer proximity than before. The quanta mechanical explanations are not fully understood, but there are several companies and government offices that have operational devices.
Good bye oil. Google LENR, NASA, Zawodny, and Bushnell. NASA loves it. Checkout this youtube video from NASA. The big question is why the DOE is dragging their heels. October 8 Report This is the Federation of American Scientist Do a quick search at the above site for “LENR” The Indians are on it. Dense Plasma Focus goes something like this.
Two cylindrical electrodes are enclosed in a glass tube after one electrode is slipped inside the other. The tube is then filled with Boron gas and high voltage is applied to the electrodes. A plasma is then produced and pulsed by a strong magnetic field. As this pulsing is increased and focused the plasmoids begin to ball up on one another. As pulsing continues a beam of electrons emanates from one end of the tube and a beam of protons from the other, with extremely high amounts of energy being produced. Google Charles Chase, Skunk Works, and Dense Plasma Focus.
Watch Charles Chase on youtube. Catalyzed Hydrogen is what will replace Electrolysis. Molybdenum Sulfide is but one of the substances that will trim the Hydrogen right off the water molecule with no energy being expended, releasing it to power a fuel cell and generate electricity directly. There was a graduate student by the name of Chang working in Berkeley CA on this a couple of years ago. Graphene is essentially one atom thick layers of Carbon alternated between layers of insulation, such as mylar.
When you get a bunch of these layers stacked up and attach electrodes to the top and bottom of the stack you have created a capacitor of another color. Extremely high values of capacitance can be arrived at. 3000 farads is what I have seen advertised, the size of a marine battery.
This material can be used as a capacitor, a spectacular new form of battery, or configured as an extremely efficient solar cell. Additionally I have recently heard of work aimed at producing LENR in a Graphene environment. Ampenergo is a company that I think licensed this technology from the government. I want so much for Elon Musk to incorporate this into his new models. Not quite sure where to put this one. Zero Point Energy/Energy of the Vacuum used to be a little far out for me, but now I think I’ve got a cursory handle on it.
The process on a Quantum level is much like the process that produces Ball Lightening. When tectonic plates shift causing an earth quake occasionallly something called Ball Lightening happens. Only in Zero Point it is what happens when an Orthorhombic plane from another dimension intersects our dimension and causes a disruption, releasing energy. Here’s a Moray B. King video from the Breakthrough Energy Movement. Also a piece straight from NASA discussing something call an EmDrive utilizing RF energy at 935 Mhz to interact with the Energy of the Vacuum. Acoustic Cavitation/Bubble Fusion/Sonofusion.
I am not sure at all how to say anything about this, but there is a great deal published about the possibility of deriving energy using this phenomenon. Muon catalyzed Fusion.
Oh this is a good one!! Fermi Lab and SLAC developed a coherent beam of Muon’s a couple of years ago. They shoot it into Hydrogen or Deuterium gas, and because the Muons have a negative charge equal to an electron, but are 207 times more massive than an electron they knock the electrons out of their shells around the Nucleus and the Fusion is made to happen in the atoms Nucleus. I don’t know how many electron shells a beam can penetrate.
But I’m betting it is more than one. Pretty good stuff 8. HALOGEN-CATALYSED COLD NUCLEAR FUSION, yet another, not quite as much info available for this flavor.
Thermionic Power Generation/Thermoelectric, I heard about this just the other day. It may be that this technology will be a prime player. The devices turn heat from the sun, or anything else directly into electricity, instead of using light as photovoltaic solar cells do. I don’t quite get it, but here is a patent from 1981 for this technology. I think NOW is the time for it to rise to the occasion. LENR with Zeolites, And of course the loading of zeolite with hydrogen, or deuterium gas You’ve got to love these guys. I would think that this would have to be one of the most easily demonstrated methods of cold fusion.
At least if you believe these two fellows. As it turns out plasma is pretty simple to make.
Anyone can do it with a 12 V battery. Ever seen a simple spark while you were giving yourself a jump start to your automobiole? Within the spark, taking into account that 1% of the atmosphere is composed of Nobel gases, which go to the Plasma state within the spark.
There are no magnets to confine the plasma once it is formed, so it is allowed to expand and drive a piston. My explanation is my own, but I think its close. I don’t know how I missed this one. All the big money is going HERE. The video is from 60 minutes a couple of years ago.
Things are on a roll here with what looks like a jump for fuel cells. It amounts to thin wafers of Silicon that have been coated with different materials on each side and then stacked, much as the way you would stack Graphene layers upon one another.
From what is said on 60 minutes these things are being deployed at major.com outfits in Silicon Valley. BlackLight Power Hydrino machine. OK, we’re at a bakers dozen now, what the heck is going on.
10MW of electricity out of 1 cu. The following is a caption under an illustration at the above website. SF-CIHT Cell Generates Electricity Directly from Water Freely Available in the Humidity in the Air 14. Steorn Machine.
They say that this new kind of electric generator has been duplicated by a number of organizations. A key fundemental cited is “Magnetic Regauging” Ferrite materials figure in as well. I actually have some experience using ferrite material. I built Isolators and circulators for military microwave applications. Biasing a ferrite puck with magnets causes microwave energy to flow in a circular manner within the ferrite. Reverse the magnetic polarity and energy flows in the opposite direction. While I was working in the field as a technician I was told that the phenomenon was not 100% understood.
Perhaps it is now. Additionaly I witnessed a couple of folks producing a little bit different kind of sintered ferrite material in the late 80’s that turned out to be high temperature super conducting material. It’s the symmetry of a magnetic circuit that has been the thing that has been in the way. They say they have created a means of creating a constantly asymmetrical magnetic circuit.
Or, something like that. Holy Smokes it’s beginning to make sense to me! On a personal note, about 30 years ago I had recurrent dreams of a machine very much like this one.
A little spooky! The best information that I have seen so far paints it as another flavor of LENR, BUT IT IS OPEN SOURCED!! The Stirling Engine If this isn’t a show stopper, I don’t know what it is!! Multiplaz Welding and Cutting Tool, This doesn’t generate excess heat, but it uses tap water and alcohol to make a heck of a plasma cutter. The fact that Plasma can so easily and cheaply produced is what I find interesting. Optical Rectification The deal here is essentially that they have tapped the electromagnetic nature of light.
After all, different colored lights have different wavelenghts and therefore different frequencies. Everything from DC to daylight and beyond is what makes up the electromagnetic spectrum.
They have now figured out how to rectify these extremely high frequencies and produce direct current electricity. You rectify 60 cycle AC when you build an electrical bridge circuit of diodes to convert it to DC. Optical Rectification is a Quantum kind of thing. I’m not quite sure where to put this one.
Thermophotovoltaics 20. Photoswitching This amounts to a hinged nanomolecular construct that switches from one state to the other on demand releasing energy. When the sun isn’t out rechargeable solar batteries use a small electric current or a small light to start the switching back to the other state. There is some plumbing involved and a liquid medium holds thr charge.
Ryden dual carbon battery 22. Singlet Exiton Fission A new approach to Solar Cells 23. Thorium Molten Salt Reactor I have resisted this one, but I couldn’t tell you why. I have not seen scalability yet. Al Opdenaker likes this one. Vanadium Redox-flow Battery 25. Artificial Leaf Straight from MIT 26.
Thermionic Self Charging Graphene Batteries, google “self charging batteries”!! The hybridization has begun. Piezoelectric self charging Batteries 28. Magnetic Field Regauging Some of the stuff on this list is pretty wild.
Some of the websites that discuss this topic are pretty hard to swallow, but the science is catching up with recent lab results and discoveries. A little time searching on google and you will start seeing the possibilities. BEST HomeMade Magnetic Motor Construction – HoJo Motor It deserves a closer look 30. Superhydrophobia A weak Black Swan at best, but it is a new way to generate it. From MITEI 31. Steam from the sun New way of making steam from MITEI 32.
Cannae Drive/EmDrive Straight from NASA 33. Traveling Wave Reactor Bill Gates is working this one. Solid-State Batteries If graphene doesn’t do it all by itself this technology is staged to replace Lithium in 2020. HHO-Catlytic Converter, or H-CAT 36. Betavoltaics/Nuclear Batteries “For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low,” Fauchet explained.
“We’ve found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years.” 37. “Photoinduced Electron Transfer pathways in Hydrogen-Evolving Reduced Graphene Oxide-Boosted Hybrid Nano-Bio Catalyst,” appeared in the July 7 issue of ACS Nano.Read more at: 38. Optoelectric Nuclear Battery 39. Searl Generator 40.
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor For some time now I have been confusing this approach to #2 above “Dense Plasma Focus”. This was just released on Oct 15 2014 by Lockheed Management. DPF may have other functions. Inertial Electrostatic Confinement 42. “kinetic isotope effect” in nanoaluminum particles 110, 80, and 38 nanometers in size. PRISM REACTOR Major Nuclear Remediation 44.
Magnesium Batteries 45. Energy Harvester 46. Nanopore Batteries 47. Metal-air Cells 48+. Here’s a list of different ways of getting to Fusion, old and new.
I am still evaluating several of these. Some of them look like dead dogs, others are up and coming. To date, there have been several approaches to try to harness fusion reaction for electricity production: Tokamak, Levitated Dipole, Riggatron, Field-Reversed Configuration, Reversed Field Pinch, Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor, Spheromak, Laser Fusion, Z-machine, MagLIF, Focus Fusion, Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor, Bussard Polywell, Muon-catalyzed Fusion, Heavy Ion Fusion, Magnetized Target Fusion, Colliding Plasma Toroid Fusion, Cold Fusion, Sonofusion, Pyroelectric Fusion, Astron, Tri Alpha Energy, Helion Energy, Beam Fusion, General Fusion, Migma, and others.2627 Paul D.