Sustainable Energy - Simple, But Often Misunderstood

One of the hot terms in the energy market rightmany consider it a source of sustainable energy
now is sustainable energy and although the termbecause of its availability in mass quantity and the
itself is quite simple, the concept itself is oftenrelatively small amount of material to produce energy.
misunderstood.The energy output of 1 kg. of Uranium is about the
Sustainable energy has two key elements. The firstsame as 1500 tonnes of coal. There are obvious
being a renewable source of energy and the secondsocial and political concerns about the use of nuclear
being the efficient use of energy. Understanding howenergy. However, proper waste disposal measures
to apply these two principles is an important part ofcan help to make nuclear energy an inexpensive and
understanding how sustainable energy will contributeclean source of power.
to our future energy mix.The second element of sustainable energy is just as
First, let's consider renewable resources. The term isimportant as the first. Energy efficiency is defined as
really quite self explanatory. The resources used inthe use of energy in a way that produces little
the production of the energy must be renewable in awaste. Traditionally, improving efficiency is done by
relatively short period of time. Many people defineHOW energy is used. This process usually consists of
the time frame as being within the average humanimplementing new devices which use less energy to
lifetime. For this reason, resources such as windproduce the same amount of work or by using
power and solar power have become obvioustechnologies such as power factor correction
choices. However, there are a variety of otherequipment (see XXXArticle). However, we must
renewable resources which can be an excellentconsider a third alternative. Load Shifting! Load shifting
source of energy in the right situation such as tidalis the practice of changing WHEN we use our
power and geothermal power.appliances and electrical devices.
Although Uranium is not a renewable resource itself,