Alternative Forms of Generating Electrical Energy: Wind, Solar and Fuel Cell Power Essay Example

The societal demands for electrical energy have drastically increased in the past number of years. The sharp escalation of fuel consumption caused the demand for fossil fuels, which generate electrical energy, to increase as well. Almost 80% of domestic electricity use is used for space and water heating. To reduce the amount of energy produced by fossil fuels, the amount of electricity used must be lessened, and other renewable methods of electrical energy generation must be found. Research in the field of electrical energy generation in the past years has revealed several viable sources for potentially generating electricity in the near future, which include wind turbines, solar cells and fuel cells, all of which are forms of renewable sources of energy. Wind power is a renewable resource that offers clean and affordable energy, but can be unreliable. All renewable sources of energy ultimately come from the sun, which radiates approximately 1.37 kW/m on the surface of the spherical Earth, which has the sun as its centre and the average radius of the Earth's orbit. The power reaches a circular area, with an area of about 1.27 x 1014 m. Therefore, the power that reaches the Earth is 1.744 x 1017 W every hour. Approximately one to two percent of this energy is converted into wind energy. This process occurs when the energy from the sun heats the air, which constitutes the Earth's atmosphere. The air at 0° latitude receives a greater portion of the energy, due to its closer proximity to the source of energy, the sun. As the air around the equator is less dense, due to its increased temperature, it rises roughly 10 km up and then moves towards either of the Earth's poles. Due to the rotation of the Earth, this air is diverted counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This effect is called the Coriolis force, after French mathematician, Gustave Gaspard Coriolis (1792-1843). The wind rising