Alternative Energy Source: Water

The search for alternative energy has long focused on water, oddly people who thought of water as an energy source have usually been thought of as crackpots. Given that we have long gotten energy from water in the form of hydroelectricity it is strange that the idea is so frequently ridiculed. While it is unlikely that you will be driving a car powered by water in the near future there are other ways to use it as an energy source. In order to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels it is well worth it to take a serious look at using water as a source of power.

Most people wouldn't think of water as an alternative energy source given that it is actually one of our most widely used sources of energy. Hydroelectric power has been a major source of energy for years. There are however a number of other ways that water can be used as an energy source and when we refer to water as an alternative source of energy we are usually referring to the idea of using the tides to power turbines. In reality this isn't all that different from the way we use water to power a hydroelectric plant but it can be done without having the same impact on the environment.

Today when we use water to power hydroelectric plants it usually requires building a dam on a river so that the water can be forced to descend and spin a turbine. This is an efficient way to produce electricity but the process of damming a river does come with a significant impact on the environment. A lot of people believe that a better alternative would be to put turbines in the ocean that would either be spun by the oceans waves or by the rising tide. This would allow for the production of electricity without having as large an impact on the environment.

There is however some debate about how much impact ocean turbines would have on the environment. Some people argue that it might actually be worse than the current hydroelectric projects. The problem is that the turbines will produce heat that will be released into the oceans. Since the world's oceans are largely responsible for controlling the world's climate raising the temperatures would have a serious impact. At the current small scale level of power generation that we are getting from the oceans this isn't really an issue but if we are going to take it seriously as an alternative source of energy it is something we will need to look into. In order to come anywhere close to producing enough electricity to meet the world's needs we would need to put thousands of turbines into the oceans. That many is bound to have an impact on the temperatures of the oceans. This is something that needs more study in order to make sure that we aren't trading one environmental problem for another.