PHYSICS COURSEWORK

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES

JEVON MOHAMMED
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BIOMASS ENERGY

WHAT IS BIOMASS ENERGY?

Biomass is organic matter derived from living, or recently living organisms. Biomass can be used as a source
of energy and it most often refers to plants or plant-based materials which are not used for food or feed, and are
specifically called lignocellulosic biomass.

Biomass is a fancy name for material from plants and animals. Some kinds of biomass can be burned to produce energy.
One common example is wood.

Biomass contains stored energy. That's because plants absorb energy from the sun through the process of photosynthesis.
When biomass is burned, this stored energy is released as heat.

Burning biomass releases carbon dioxide. However, plants also take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and use it to
grow their leaves, flowers, branches, and stems. That same carbon dioxide is returned to the air when the plants are
burned.

Many different kinds of biomass, such as wood chips, corn, and some types of garbage, are used to produce electricity.
Some types of biomass can be converted into liquid fuels called biofuels that can power cars, trucks, and tractors. Leftover
food products like vegetable oils and animal fats can create biodiesel, while corn, sugarcane, and other plants can be
fermented to produce ethanol.
SOLAR POWER

WHAT IS SOLAR POWER?

Solar power is the use of the suns energy either directly as thermal energy (heat) or through the use of photovoltaic
cells in solar panels and transparent photovoltaic glass to generate electricity.

Simply the power obtained by harnessing the energy of the sun's rays.

Standard photovoltaic solar panels are the most efficient application of photovoltaics. However, photovoltaic glass allows
generation from surfaces like building windows that were previously incapable of anything but passive solar energy and
also enables other options, like color choices. Other technologies include low-tech solar heaters created from recycled
cans that provide an inexpensive source of heat. Concentrated solar power uses multiple lenses or reflectors to collect
more of the suns thermal energy. Thermal energy collected through the day is typically applied to oil or molten salts that
retain heat to boil water for steam turbine generators throughout the night.

In the data center, solar power and other sources of clean electricity, such as wind power and tidal power, are increasingly
implemented to save money, increase self-sufficiency and improve sustainability. Besides being cheaper than fossil fuels,
solar power avoids the costs associated with environmental damage through extraction, spills and dealing with pollution
created through combustion.

Solar power has been used for thousands of years in many different ways by people all over the world. As well as its
traditional human uses in heating, cooking, and drying, it is used today to make electricity where other power supplies are
absent, such as in remote places and in space. It is becoming cheaper to make electricity from solar energy and in many
situations it is now competitive with energy from coal or oil.
TIDAL POWER

WHAT IS TIDAL POWER?

Tidal energy is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of the tides into electricity or other useful forms of power.
The tide is created by the gravitational effect of the sun and the moon on the earth causing cyclical movement of the seas.
Tidal energy is therefore an entirely predictable form of renewable energy.

Tidal electricity like other forms of energy, the main usage of tidal energy is in the generation of electricity. Tidal energy is
being used in France to generate 240 MW of tidal electricity at very low costs. There are other smaller plants in operation
in Canada, China and Korea as well. DOE has located 40 places in the world where the differences between the low and high
tides is big enough to generate commercial levels of tidal electricity. Note the power generated from tidal energy is reliable
as tides are uniform and predictable in nature.