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Alternative Energy. Sustainable? You Bet!
With today's ever growing concern over pollution, high fuel costs (Don't let the recent decline fool you), and sustainability of our natural resources, we must look to alternatives to ease or eliminate our dependence on the things that cause those concerns to begin with.
Oil and coal are our two main sources for our energy use today. These two "Resources" are "Unsustainable" as they will eventually run out or least be depleted to the point they are no longer a viable option in an ever growing world population.
Oil (Petroleum - which literally means "Rock Oil") is where we derive our fuel to power our vehicles and heat our homes among other things of that nature. We also get plastics and believe it or not, some food ingredients (Huh???) like paraffin wax used in some chocolate making and frozen foods.
Coal is our main source of energy for the generation of electricity for our home and business use. Coal is burned in furnaces to produce steam which in turn spins turbines which spins the generators, thus lighting the world with fast moving electrons for our needs, wants and entertainment. This is all fine and dandy except the fact that coal is one of the leading sources of carbon dioxide emissions today, even more than our old pal oil. Not so good.
Incidentally, a coal byproduct (Coal Tar) is also used in some foods (No Way!!!) and certain personal care products like toothpaste. It's called "Sodium Saccharin", the artificial sweetener used as an "Alternative" to natural sugar.
Now unfortunately, our economy has a stranglehold on these two forms of energy. Getting away from them is not an easy task. We are literally "Forced" into their use by our current state of affairs. The powers that be benefit greatly from this fact, irregardless of the environmental consequences and sustainability issues. This is one of the reasons we seemingly can't get away from it, no matter how much politics is involved. We gripe about the issues, but do little to change it as we are "helpless" against the system and must use it anyway no matter how much we disagree with it. The little guy just has no voice, right?
Wrong!
One of the best ways to help change the future and outlook of alternative energy, our real answer to unsustainable oil and coal, is on the home front. If we all change things at the local level, each successive level will be forced to change as well. It is the law of nature.
Using sustainable alternative methods in our everyday lives by changing over to the things we use everyday energy wise, we begin to change the world around us, especially when others follow suit. You may have to pay a little more for a hybrid or electric vehicle today than the standard combustion engine that uses only ancient unsustainable goop, but the more people seek out and demand these kind of environmentally friendly options, the lower the prices will get. More importantly though, the less gas (Oil) powered vehicles will sell and eventually become obsolete if the demand is high enough for the nature approved modes of transportation.
Aside from ways we travel, changing how we electrify our homes is a HUGE step that is not only friendly to the environment, but cost effective! The savings are immense and the benefits can be surprising. If you set up an alternative way to make electricity for your home, and you produce too much, the power company in your area will actually buy the excess from you! Yes, you heard right, they will BUY it from you. For more information on this please check out the Earth 4 Energy website link below.
There are many forms of sustainable and renewable energy solutions you can employ for your home. The best and most cost friendly and effective ways are wind and solar power.
There is no better time than the present to prepare for the future, and help change the ways of the past.
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