Alternative Energy – Not As New As You May Think

There’s a lot more news about alternative energies recently. Different people have different ideas about just what it is. They also have different ideas about how long alternative energy has been around. I wrote this article to give my perspective on

alternative energy is commonly used to refer to sources of energy that are an alternative to coal, oil and natural gas. These fossil fuels have been the most common source of our energy for generations.

Our current perspective blinds us to the fact that the emergence of fossil fuels as the dominant form of energy happened only recently in world history. Wind, animals and hydropower were the dominant sources of energy until the mid-19th century.

Dutch windmills are an icon of the country. Windows are also closely associated wit old ranches of the American West.

Many people are surprised to learn that producing solar hot water heating systems was a commercially profitable business in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century.

I think you can see that our dependence on fossil fuels is relatively recent. Rather than something completely new, using alternative energies is a return to an older practice.

With that background, here’s my working definition of alternative energy: energy from a source other than the burning of fossil fuels (again coal, oil and its derivatives and natural gas).

We should make a distinction between alternative energy and renewable energy. People tend to assume that they’re one and the same but they aren’t. Some non-fossil fuel energy sources can be depleted.

However most sources of alternative energy are renewable as well as better for the environment than fossil fuel. That is why there is such interest in these types of energy these days.

The alternative sources people most commonly think of are solar power, wind power and hydropower. However, researchers are eagerly exploring other innovative sources as well. These include things such geothermal, biomass and tidal power.

In the not too distant future we can expect that these forms of energy will no longer be “alternative” but instead be our dominate sources.