As you drive down the road in central and western Nebraska you look out your window and you will start to see huge white Wind Mills.  Technically they are Wind Turbines since they don't grind grain or pump water.  The way they fit into Environmental Technology is they use the wind to turn the blades.  Once the blades start to rotate they then rotate a shaft attached to a gear box.  In the gear box the rotational speed is increased and then it turns at a much greater speed that is connected to a generator that produces AC energy. Once the energy is produced it is drawn away for use in the electrical power grid.

    Some advantages of using Wind Turbines as a power source are, of course,  it is a clean power source. It doesn't rely on fossil fuels so it won't produce the gases that may affect our atmosphere and is renewable source of power. It is also a local free power source that we don't have to rely on and pay other country's for a source of power and fuel. Over all wind power is one of the cheapest sources of power.  The turbines can be placed almost any where, smaller ones in cities or the larger ones in the rural areas. When the turbines are place on private property, such as farms, the power company's who own them pay the land owner, usually a farmer, rent for using the land. This also helps the farmers in economic trouble by providing a secondary source of income as well as cheap power for him and his neighbors.

    As with all technology, there are some disadvantages.  One such disadvantage would be you would not always have a constant power source so you would not get a constant flow of energy to your power grid.  Another disadvantage is your power source (the wind) would be to strong, so like in all circuits in the event of and overload you would have to break your circuit, you would have to lock down the wind mills so they wouldn't get damaged.  The final disadvantage would be in some areas the cost/output ratio would not be very good so you would save money by going a different way.

   Solar energy is the energy put out by the sun that travels through space and then to the atmosphere or ground on earth. People have been using this energy for years wither to dry off your clothes or warm up your body. Recently though we have found ways to turn this energy in to a energy we can use to power our electronic things. We have accomplished this by using photovoltaic cells to convert the solar energy coming through the atmosphere.

    Some advantages of solar power are; its free and requires no other fuels such as wood, coal, and oil. It is also very easy to get the power to a remote place because you can place it by the area that requires the power. Finally, it is a renewable resource.

    Obviously a problem with solar power is it requires sun light to operate, therefore on cloudy days or at night you receive little power. Its not very effective in converting the energy from the sun to useable energy for us. So solar power still has a little way before it efficiently powers our homes

    Another natural power source that is slowly being harvested by humans is, Geothermal power.  Geothermal power when water that becomes vaporized (steam) under the crust of the earth and escapes out of cracks in the crust. Hydrothermal power is what is acquired when that steam is used to turn a generator's turbines. The turbines make the power that we use in our homes. The country with the most geothermal energy usage is Iceland.

    Some advantages of using Geothermal/Hydrothermal power are it doesn't produce pollution, nothing is burned and the only by-products are water and energy. No forms of fuels are needed, all that is needed to collect Geothermal/Hydrothermal energy is a structure to hold the turbines that producing it making it almost free once the structure is built. The turbine houses require little room, so they can be put out in the wild and not affect its surroundings much. It is also renewable.

    The some of the disadvantages of it are sometimes a geothermal site may run out of steam forever or just decades. The big problem is that there are not many places where you can build a geothermal power station. You need rocks hot enough to make the steam, at a reachable depth. Finally, some times hazardous gases and minerals may come up from underground, and can be hard to safely get rid of.

web sites used:

http://geothermal.inel.gov

http://www.nesea.org

http://www.darvill.clara.net

http://www.eere.energy.gov

Created by: Doug Langhorst, Josh Crosgrove, Justin Curry, Jacob Jensen