Wind Solar and Wave Energy

Most of the energy that runs our society today comes from fossil fuels. They are not in unlimited supply, however, and we should start now to find alternative sources of energy to prepare for what is to come. We’ll need more eventually and it is surprising that people don’t seem to be worrying about this!

Wind, solar and hydroelectric energy have come a long way in recent years, and they are becoming more and more popular. As technology of those energy sources improves, they will become cheaper and eventually cheap enough to replace fossil fuels as our primary energy source.

There are other types of alternative energy which you may not have considered, however. One such energy source is wave energy, and people are beginning to become excited about how it is developing.

The energy in waves is very dense, so energy can be taken out of them with a relatively small power plant. Wave energy also doesn’t break like sun energy or wind energy may.

A country famous for its beaches and surfing, Australia, already has many of these wind generators powering its cities.

An example of a wave power plant in Australia sits just off the coast of a city just south of Sydney. The plant weighs about 500 tons and can power about 500 homes on the coast. It also desalinates 2000 L of sea water everyday, almost enough for all of those homes it powers.

It is built to survive almost any major storm, though it is fairly small in size. It produces about 500kW of power and it cost $4.7 million to create.

Wave energy is still fairly expensive, but many experts believe that as its technology develops it may have the best chance of any alternative energy to become less expensive than fossil fuels.

Here is a great video if you want to learn all about solar panels for your home. It’s easy and you’ll save thousands of dollars. Reduce your energy bill easily with residential solar panels at home.