Energy Alternatives

Keeping a Bright Idea Alive

Benjamin Franklin was really on to something the night he went kite flying in a thunder storm. From those humble beginnings to Edison’s light bulb our world has been changed for ever from those incredibly bright ideas. Our daughter lived in the remote areas of Guatemala for 18 months doing humanitarian work. The electricity was “rolling” meaning you never knew when it was your turn to have it or not. It would roll through the little villages, you could be in the middle of showering or making dinner and all the electricity in the area would go out. Many nights she would be visiting with the locals and the power would go out and they never said a word, they would just pick up there chairs and sit under the stars resuming their conversation as if nothing happened.

We are not as adapt here in New Jersey; if our power goes out we lose the use of stoves, lights, vacuums, microwaves, washer and dryers, heating and air conditioning, alarm clocks and even televisions. We have had power outages before and I will think that while I can’t cook dinner, I will do the laundry, or some other odd job also requiring electricity such as curling my hair. We are so reliant on power we hardly think about it. We are also very spoiled here in all we have to do if we are experiencing electrical problems is call a New Jersey electrician and within hours our problems are usually solved. We recently called a New Jersey electrician to install lights for our ping pong table out back. How is that for spoiled? We are so blessed and fortunate to live where we live and how we live. Our entire lifestyles do revolve around electricity, maybe we ought to be a little more aware of it.

newjerseyelectricians ( http://www.newjerseyelectricians.net/services.html ) has one of the best NJ electricians.

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How Long Before Renewable Energy Revolution?

World is talking a lot about renewable energy these days but fossil fuels still very much rule the global energy supply. Wind power, solar power, geothermal power, biomass and other renewables are still pretty much mentioned as future sources of energy, as something that still needs time to fully develop. How come?

Perhaps the main reason why renewable energy still needs time to fully develop are powerful fossil fuel lobbies. These lobbies make sure to get major political decisions their way, and our civilization still hasn’t advanced to the point where politics can be overturned because everything that happens in the world today is nothing but one big game of interests and politics.

Renewable revolution still doesn’t fully fit into the political image of the world. Fossil fuel lobbies are still too powerful, and renewables are still too weak to fight them. These sources do have edge in environmental terms but coal, oil, and natural gas are still the cheaper option, and economy is still much more important than ecology, so fossil fuels still rule the world.

Renewables are still symbolized by significantly higher costs when compared with coal, oil, and natural gas, and as long as they fail to compete with fossil fuels in terms of costs things will not change. Environmental advantages are clearly not enough because money is still the main thing that makes monkey dance, and this factor currently doesn’t support the renewable energy cause.

Still one cannot say that nothing is happening with renewables today as many renewable resources are showing significant progress on both technological as well as economical level. So perhaps this renewable revolution is already on the way.

Ned Hall has so far written many interesting articles about renewable energy sources in United States as well as many other interesting renewable energy articles.

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Tidal Power Needs More Attention

When people talk about renewable energy resources they usually do not mention energy from tides. This is mostly because very few places in the world have so far presented this renewable energy source to the public, and its commercialization still looks to be many years away. This energy source has excellent potential in many parts of the world but up to this point only Great Britain expressed bigger interest in further developing tidal power technologies while all other countries lag far behind.

United States for instance hasn’t seriously considered this energy source, despite strong potential in US Northeast that has a powerful, constant and predictable tidal resources that could be harnessed to get the electricity to the nearby area.

The main reason why many energy experts do not talk about tidal energy as one of the most important energy sources are very high construction costs. Every energy resource requires certain level of cost-competitiveness, and tidal power is still connected with high capital costs so not many investors are attracted to this renewable energy technology.

Britain on the other hand believes that tidal power will be their best ticket in getting the best possible position in global clean energy race, a technology that will make British economy more competitive. This is the main reason why British government continues to invest in further development of this technology, and British government is convinced that tidal energy will be of great help in achieving Britain’s renewable energy goal of 5% of energy coming from renewables by 2020.

In any case tidal power shouldn’t be overlooked when discussing possible alternatives to fossil fuels, and this is certainly among renewables that need more attention.

Ned Hall has so far written many interesting tidal power articles as well as many other interesting renewable energy articles

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