Sources of Energy

Classification: renewable and non-renewable sources.

Renewable sources are hydro-power, solar energy, wind energy, tidal or wave energy and energy from bio-mass.

Non-renewable sources include fossil fuels, viz., solid fuels, liquid fuels, gaseous fuels and nuclear fuel.

Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels are classified as solid, liquid and gaseous as natural or prepared.

Solid fuels:
Naturally occurring solid fuels include wood, varieties of coals, viz., anthracite, bituminous and lignite (brown coal) while prepared ones include coke, charcoal etc.

Liquid Fuels:
Liquid fuels include petroleum and its derivative, namely, diesel. After the first and second shocks of oil prices, the power industry in western countries moved from oil to coal.

Gaseous fuels:
Naturally occurring gaseous fuel is natural gas which comes out of gas wells and petroleum wells. Producer gas, coal gas and blast furnace gas are prepared from gaseous fuels.

Energy stored in water:
The potential energy of water at higher level is used for the generation of electrical power. Apart from being perennial and inexhaustible source of energy, it represents the cheapest source of energy from our country. Water is renewable source of energy, as it is neither consumed nor converted into something else.

Nuclear energy:
Enormous release of energy from relatively small mass of nuclear fuel like uranium makes this source of energy of great interest. The energy liberated by nuclear fission of one kilogram of uranium is equal to the heat energy obtained by burning 4500 tons of high grade coal.

Solar energy:
The heat energy contained in the rays of sun is utilized to boil water and generate steam which can be used to drive prime movers to generate electrical powers.

Wind energy:
Wind energy can be made use of where wind at suitable velocity is available.
Tidal or wave energy:
Ocean wavers and tides contain large amount of potential energy which is also used for power generation.

Geo-thermal energy:
It is the thermal energy naturally available in the form of steam in some part of the earth below the earth surface. Generally geo-thermal steam is available in volcanic regions.