FXSTD – Alternative Energy Center

By: Sam Deias
Nowadays opting for renewable anergy is an important issue to be considered. Many are the benefits that choosing this option we may receive, that otherwise we’ll miss out. There are two main reasons to consider when facing the actual and hot subject of renewable energy sources: money in your pockets and environment.

Let’s think a bit at the money in our pockets

I know for sure that many of us would love having some more money to spend each month for reasons that may range from leisure and traveling, to home improvement and personal development or from helping other people less blessed then we are to adopting children in countries where nutrition is an issue, or whatever the reason could be. Adopting one alternative energy solution in your household may save you, on average $100 per month, which is $1200 (about 950 euros or 800 GBP) per year, OK not a big deal you may think. But now look from a different angle and consider that the 80% of the whole population in the world lives in subhuman conditions and the 50% suffers of malnutrition, it matters now? Multiply $1200 for the number of households (more then 151 millions only in Europe) and you have the money that can be saved and reinvested in different sectors each year. Projected in a bigger scale a saving of $100 per month, as you can see, is a change that may have an hugely positive impact on world’s economy.

The second issue to consider is the environment

Switching on the alternative energy sources may result in a great improvement in the cleanness of the environment, here is why: As you know the non-renewable sources are not found in the surface of our planet. Coal, oil, natural gas and others need to be found and then mined or extracted to be available to produce the energy we need. The process is very expensive, difficult and dangerous and getting always worse. In fact all the resources have already been exploited and now oil, gas and coal companies have to find and extract from not easy accessible places which means more money to be invested and bigger probability to damage the planet. William J. Cummings, spokesman of Exxon-Mobil company, in December 2005 said: - All the easy oil and gas in the world has pretty much been found. Now comes the harder work in finding and producing oil from more challenging environments and work areas -. But extraction is only one part in the process involved in producing energy. Once found, the resources need to be moved to special places where can be treated and refined and then transformed. This obviously means other expensive and polluting plants, other areas involved in the big process and dangerous and expensive transport of those hazardous materials from one part to another all around the world. I’m sure you remember some of the natural disaster occurred, during oil transportation for example.

After extraction and treatment there is the transformation process, a very unsuccessful one if you think that a coal power plant can convert only up to 25% into electric energy (a mere half of a wind turbine) and that the emission of pollutants for an average coal fueled power plant is horrendously huge.

Wind farms produce energy from wind up to 50% and the land in which they are installed can be used for farming, absolutely no pollutants are emitted. You can even install a small wind turbine in your garden if you have one. No need to say that the wind doesn’t have to be mined, extracted, transported or refined so we are cutting a couple of passages, where, in traditional sources money is spent and environmental hazard are produced. Solar energy has the same advantages and now technology is approaching to a 60% of energy conversion efficiency. It’s possible to install PV panels along highways, in the roof of your home, or even in the windows of your house. Concerning the environmental aspect, the world impact is even huger in comparison with the economical aspect, however both are strictly related.

In those times where everything seems to be of global proportions, a global shift to renewable sources would be a great solutions to many problems. Thankfully today an increasing number of people are choosing the option to invest in alternative renewable energy sources, contributing to a cleaner environment and cutting their electric bills, and much more, reasons good enough to opt for the choice of renewable energy. What if we all could do the same and stop paying expensive energy bills have some more money to spend with our families and bring our contribute to a better world, I guess it would be great!