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Alternative Energy.
The earth has a finite amount of combustible fossil fuel. The irony behind fossil fuels is that they were seen as a positive alternative to deforestation and whaling to meet our energy needs. While both forests and whales reproduce, fossil fuels are created on such a long timetable that it is impossible to replenish them at the rate with which we use them. The irony is of course that we switched consumption modes rather than realizing that the rate at which we consumed natural resources was the problem, not the scarcity of any individual resource.
Fast forward past the industrial revolution and you see the earth today, with humanity in search of alternative energy sources. But what exactly are alternative energy sources? Well, in the simplest terms they are an alternative to traditional sources of energy. But there we've used both the terms we're attempting to define in the definition, so that won't be much help. Traditional energy sources all revolve around combustion. We burned trees, and whale blubber, because they were cheap sources of heat. When we discovered electricity, we promptly invented a way to make electricity by burning things. We burn coal, and oil, and natural gas. Burning is the quintessential traditional energy source.
So if we can create energy by some method other than burning, we call that an alternative energy source. Hydroelectric plants are a prime example of this. They turn the turbines, not with steam created by boiling water; (which incidentally was boiled by burning things) but by utilizing the potential energy in water held at an elevation. It is alternative, because nothing in a functioning hydroelectric plant needs to be on fire for the plant to function. It is also another big catchword these days: renewable. Renewable energy sources replenish themselves over time. Water patterns are consistent, though not identical, in most parts of the globe. That means if there has been a running river in a given area for several centuries, it's highly unlikely the river will simply dry up overnight.
Wind power is another form of alternative energy. Wind power is superior to water power in that a wind farm has less environmental impact than damming up a river does. Another interesting thing to note is that wind alone has the capacity to produce enough electricity to meet all of the current human demand four times over. While hydroelectricity is a more common form of clean energy commercially, wind is more abundant naturally.
Solar power is the third commonly referenced form of alternative energy. The sun showers the earth with several hundred times the amount of solar radiation that it takes to fuel our electric needs. The problems with solar power lie in the efficiency of transfer from sunlight to electricity. The cost of solar panels has just recently been lowered to the point where they are a commercially viable power source. That means a solar panel can now produce enough energy over its lifetime to cover the cost of manufacturing and installing it. Further advances in both efficiency and manufacturing methods will decrease the cost-benefit ratio even further.
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