Alternative and Renewable Energy Includes Bibliography

Essay by happy_bubblesUniversity, Bachelor'sA, March 2005

download word file, 8 pages 3.2

Why the United States government has spent countless dollars in war is debatable. Is the main reason terrorism or to protect its interest in foreign crude oil? The presidential election of 2004 did address renewable and alternative energy sources, with President Bush telling the American people that he will continue his commitment to the furthering of hydrogen power, while Kerry hinted at his support of wind and solar energy, in an attempt to gain more votes. The election is over and the dust has settled. Where are the government incentives programs to further research and implement renewable and alternative energy technologies, non-existent? Nuclear, hydropower, biomass, solar, wind, tidal power, wave power, ocean current power and the energy represented by vertical temperature difference in the sea. Hydrogen fuel cells, Geothermal, Ethanol & Biodiesel, hydro-electric power and thermal depolymerization are several types of renewable and alternative energy solutions that can be utilized in the future.

We need to examine the different sources of alternative and renewable energy sources that are available today and their effects on the ecology of our societies.

Nuclear energy made its debut in the 1950's as the ultimate source of energy for the future. Approximately 16% of the world's electricity is provided by nuclear power. Nuclear Power Plant accidents have been a concern for many years. The first of which happened in 1952 in Ottawa, Canada, when a partial meltdown of the reactor's uranium fuel core resulted after the accidental removal of four control rods; there were no injuries. In 1957, north of Liverpool, England, a fire in a graphite-cooled reactor spewed radiation over the countryside, contaminating a 200-sq-mi area. The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.