Solar energy
Read the text to get information about one of the alternative sources of energy.
A combination of these 6 alternative sources of energy may prove to be our best hope to fill the energy created as supplies of fossil fuels gradually diminish.
A B
Match these alternative sources of energy A to the correct definitions B.
Answer the question.
· What new sources of energy have you heard about? Give examples of their usage.
Solar energy from plant and animal residues (остатки)
Wind energy from heat inside the earth
Geothermal energy from the sun
Modern biomass energy from seawater movement and
temperatures changes
Ocean energy from small dams, such as those filled by
melting snow
Small hydroelectric energy from moving air
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One of the most promising researches is the development of power stations with direct transformation of solar energy. Almost all energy comes from the Sun. The energy stored in coal, oil, and natural gas is the result of photosynthesis carried by plants that lived hundreds of million years ago. Wind energy is actually the movement of the atmosphere driven by the heat from the Sun. It was Russia that was the first in the world to develop and test a photoelectric battery of 32,000 volts, which made it possible to concentrate solar radiation. Currently solar energy is used in two ways: for heat (thermal) and to generate electricity (photovoltaic).
However, the efficiency of a solar power station is considerably reduced because of limited time of its work during the year. But it is possible to improve the efficiency of solar power stations by developing different combinations of solar power stations and traditional ones- thermal, atomic and hydraulic. Today some engineers are working at the problem of developing electric power stations with the use of a thermal-chemical cycle. It will operate on products of the transformation of solar energy, while the “solar” chemical reactor uses CO2 and water steam of the thermal power station. The result is that we have a closed cycle.
In Kamchatka there are geothermal power stations operating on hot water-steam mixture from the depth of about a kilometer. In some projects water will be heated by the warmth of mountains at a depth of four-five km.
It is planned that plants working on energy of the solar heat provided by the sun will be built on a larger scale. It is important that all these advances in developing new sources of energy and improving the old ones help to solve the energy problem as a whole and they won’t have negative effects on the environment.