How do you know if you are using other than fossil fuel?

Question

I would like to know if I am using like solar energy or water or wind engery than fossil fuel. How do I know?

Answer 1

Are there solar panels on your house? If so, you may be using solar energy.

Unless your parents have a windmill on the lawn, the best way to know if you are using wind, hydro or tidal power is to call the power company and ask them. They can tell you if they are using coal, oil, water, how much wind power, etc. They probably have a website that has this info on it - the power company in my area does.

Or ask a grown-up how electricity is produced in your city.

Good luck!

Answer 2

It's pretty simple. I'm assuming you're talking about power from the grid and not from stand alone renewables like your own solar panels or windmill.

Basically anyone on the grid (nearly ALL of us) is getting electricity from the nearest source. If you live near a wind farm (like I do) your power will come from the turbines (when they're spinning). And if you live near a coal power station, you're getting it all from there.

This is regardless of whether you're subscribed to green power or not. The electricity itself doesn't know or care. It's just there sharing the same power lines.

So as for green power (which is VERY good an important to subscribe to), you still don't have any control of where the power is coming from, but it's a MUCH bigger picture than that.

The entire grid produces X amount of power each day, and if , say, 10% of that is green power, then the power companies can legitimately sell that 10% (or whatever your country has) as green power and get a slightly higher price for it. If no one cares and doesn't subscribe, there's no incentive to build more green power sources. But if EVERYONE wanted it, they'd be forced to try to build FAR more green power and replace as much fossil fuel power as possible.

So you don't need to know where it's coming from in physical sense, the important thing is getting green power is helping force the entire grid over to renewable energy, which is really helping the fight against global warming as much or more than anything else you can do.

Hope that helps :O)

Answer 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmdazwAc...