Disadvantages of Alternative Energy
One of the biggest disadvantages of alternative energy is that it cannot be stored like coal and natural gas can. Storage is a huge issue because using alternative energy puts us at the whim of Mother Nature. If there is no wind for a week, relying on wind power becomes a problem. If you are too far north, solar panels will only produce sufficient energy when the Northern Hemisphere of the planet is tilted towards the sun and so on.
Other sources of alternative energy are being studied as well to power not only our homes but our vehicles as well. Hybrid cars have been on the market for a while. They use the same idea as an electric car only they don't need to be plugged in to recharge. They use their braking system to regenerate power and they still have all of the engine power of a gasoline engine. New technologies to produce a fuel cell vehicle are currently underway along with a hydro-powered hybrid using hydrogen.
Another of the disadvantages of alternative energy is that it can be expensive to implement into our already set up infrastructure. Most of the alternative energy resources available today require a different type of wiring system than what we currently have in place. This could cause the transformation to alternative energy sources to be delayed until we have depleted the remaining amounts of fossil fuels found on our Earth today.
Fossil fuels are less expensive right now than alternative energy due to the amount of changes that have to be made to adapt a alternative energy plan. This proves to be another one of the disadvantages of alternative energy. Fossil fuels are readily available and easy to use. They can be transported to almost any location for use. Power plants are already set up for burning fossil fuels like coal and this makes the whole process less expensive than transforming to alternative energy.
The advantages of using alternative energy will be realized when people are forced to make the change if for example, we deplete all of our fossil fuels or the cost of use simply become prohibitive. The disadvantages will slowly fade away as more and more people use alternative energy as their source of power.
Related Tags: cost, energy, environment, alternative, expense, nature, storage, expensive, fossil fuels
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