What Green Energy is and How Green Energy Helps the Environment

The term “green energy” is very often used in today’s social media and in conversation all around the country. For many people, the term is not well understood or well defined. This article is meant to provide you with a simple way for you to understand what people mean when they say it and provide you with a basic understanding of green energy so that you can discuss it should the topic arise.

Green energy is a catch all term meant to describe appliances and devices that help conserve energy or methods of energy production that are more environmentally friendly than traditional energy production like coal burning. Green energy can be solar power, wind power, water power, steam power, tidal power or even human power as in using a bike to generate electricity.

There are dozens of different mechanisms that can be referred to as “green energy” and it is difficult to keep them all in mind, just try to remember that they all refer to methods of energy production that do not harm the environment with caustic byproducts of the production method.

Green energy can help the environment by replacing traditional methods of energy production, or by reducing the dependence on traditional methods of energy production. Think of it this way. Suppose you use one hundred dollars of electricity every month. That produces greenhouse gasses and other pollutants in the amount of one hundred dollars worth every month.

Now suppose you install solar panels or get a windmill. Now you only buy fifty dollars worth of energy, and so you decrease the amount of pollutants that are produced to provide for your energy needs. With mass scale participation, we can reduce the pollutants by a large degree.

Green energy is currently being used by many energy companies. You can go to the home page of your local utility company to read about how it is being used by them and steps you can take to incorporate it into your daily life.

There are many forms of legislation that affect how green energy works and how much it costs. You can look into the subsidies provided by your local, state and federal government that provide subsidies to the individual to purchase solar panels and other means of producing green energy on the personal level. These issues are constantly changing, so keeping up to date is vital if you are considering doing a project.

The most common types of so called green energy are solar panels and wind mills. Solar panels can be added to your home to produce electricity and can also be used to heat water for your home use. Wind mills have been used for a long time to help farmers pump water, but now they can be used to generate electricity in the home or on a large scale.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what green energy is and how it can help the environmental for ourselves and for future generations. Perhaps this article even convinced you to look into ways you can use green energy in your every day life. If so, good luck in your attempt to decrease your dependence on traditional energy and your pursuit of green energy.