Family & Parenting Articles - What You Need To Know About Alternative Energy


by MICHELLE JOHNSON - Date: 2009-08-21 - Word Count: 424 Share This!

The scientific community and everyday people around the world are diligently trying to come up with different ways for alternatives to the fossil fuels that have driven the world's energy needs for manycenturies.

People knows that these fuels are nonrenewable and send loads of pollutants into the earth's fragile atmosphere each and every second. Everyone also knows that we just can't keep going on living this way but what can you do to try to cut yourself loose from the energy cage that has kept us in its grasp for hundreds of years? It is a question more and more Americans are asking themselves all the time. Here is a good primer on the alternatives that are available.

Number one, you can use solar energy to heat your home or business and provide hot water for home use. It may also be used to produce electricity via photovoltaic cells. The technology is constantly getting better and it's possible that with todays studies in electricity generation will both gain the efficiency of photovoltaics and bring down the cost of the electrical energy they produce.

Wind power is gaining significant source of electricity in Iowa, Texas, and California, which lead the nation in wind energy generation, however all states are investigating the possibility of adding wind generated power to their arsenal. There are also house-sized systems that you can purchase, and as the demand for them increases, they will continue to come down in cost per system and also in installation cost.

Different types of energy are less accessible to the average household, but you can use mass-produced types, such as ethanol, E85, or soy-based diesel fuel in your vehicle to bring down fossil fuels and to bring down the amount of pollution you bring to the environment.

Hydrogen fuel cells are still in the experimental stages, but many scientists continue to say that they will in time represent the wave of the future in powering our vehicles. However time will tell, what I am saying is that you can take advantage of alternative fuels today without waiting to see what happens on the hydrogen front.

Another vital advantage for going towards alternative fuel sources is that there are usually significant tax breaks to be aquired for obtaining all or part of your household to something other than traditional fossil fuel-based energy sources.

It doesn't matter which alternative energy source interests you, before you start shopping, take some time to look into possible tax incentives that may help offset some portion of their initial cost.


Related Tags: electricity, solar power, alternative energy, solar energy, wind power, wind energy, fossil fuels

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