2. What is?
Most of our electricity comes from power stations that
use fossil fuels like coal and oil.
The power stations burn the fossil fuels to make our
electricity and in that process a LOT of greenhouse
gas is made, including carbon dioxide and methane.
This is why they are called dirty sources of energy.
3. Non-renewable
Coal, oil and gas are non-renewable sources of energy
because we can only use what is available and once
they have been used up.
4. Renewable
They are also renewable which means they can be
used over and over again.
Renewable resources are those which can be replenished
over time by some natural process, including farming.
These resources have the ability to be renewed over a
short period of time.
5. Examples
Alcohol - Used in the production of biodiesel
Algae - Can be harvested and made into jet fuel, biodiesel and biobutanol
Animal fat - Used to make biodiesel or bioplastic
Bark and sawdust - Used for heat and power
Barley - Can make fuel ethanol
Corn - Used to make ethanol to power cars and heat homes
Corn starch - Used to make bioplastic
Crop residues - Such as wheat straw or corn stover
Duckweed - Used fore ethanol production
Geothermal energy - The heat of the Earth and comes from under the ground.
Power plants use this as well as geothermal heat pumps for homes.
6. Wind
Wind energy is actually caused by the sun warming up the
air. You can read more about this process in the fact sheets
linked here.
Humans have been using the energy of the wind for
centuries. Windmills have been used to mill wheat and pump
water.
7.
8. Solar
Solar means sun and Australia is the sunniest place on
the planet, which is good news.
We can use the energy from the sun in a number of
ways.
Until recently, systems to use solar energy were very
expensive and the technology was only capable of
using a small percentage of the energy.
9.
10. Water
There are so many ways to harness the energy of water.
Wave, tides, ocean thermals and flowing rivers all have
energy that we can use
Australia has a great history in hydro-electricity with
the Snowy River scheme still the biggest engineering
project in our history.
11.
12. Bioenergy
Energy derived from biomass to create heat and
electricity (or to produce liquid fuels used for
transportation, like ethanol and biodiesel). Biomass
refers to any organic matter coming from recently living
plants or animals. Even though bioenergy generates
about the same amount of carbon dioxide as fossil fuels,
the replacement plants grown as biomass remove an
equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, keeping the
environmental impact relatively neutral.
13.
14. Geothermal
Is derived from the heat of the earth itself. This heat can
be sourced close to the surface or from heated rock and
reservoirs of hot water miles beneath our feet.
Geothermal power plants harness these heat sources to
generate electricity.
15.
16. Hydroelectric
Kinetic energy of flowing rivers is captured in a much
different way and converted into hydroelectricity.
Probably the most familiar type of hydroelectric power is
generated by a system in which dams are constructed to
store water in a reservoir. When released, the water
flows through turbines to produce electricity.
17.
18. Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the simplest (comprised of one proton and
one electron) and most abundant element in the
universe, yet it does not occur naturally as a gas on earth.
Instead, it is found in organic compounds (hydrocarbons
such as gasoline, natural gas, methanol and propane)
and water (H2O).