Clean energy is one of those terms we see bandied in news reports about climate change and fossil fuels. Most of us know that oil and gas are responsible for many damaging effects on the environment and that the movement toward clean energy is gaining ground with the younger generation and even politicians.

But do you know what clean ener­gy is, exact­ly? Do you know what it means to how we heat our homes, pow­er our vehi­cles, and pro­tect our wildlife, water and landscapes? If not, don’t wor­ry! In this arti­cle, we define clean ener­gy in all its many forms and look at how it’s going to change our lives. In the past, every­one did use oil and gas to heat our homes and office build­ings. No one thought twice in the 20^th cen­tu­ry about the oil fur­nace they had in the base­ment. It was filled once or twice a year, depend­ing on the cli­mate where you lived, and after that, the oil fur­nace was forgotten. Then, folks began switch­ing to high-effi­cien­cy gas fur­naces. Some heat­ed their homes with elec­tric base­board heaters but at a ter­rif­i­cal­ly high cost every month. Gas was what home­own­ers want­ed, and new homes gen­er­al­ly had them installed while oth­ers replaced old oil fur­naces with gas ones. Until fair­ly recent­ly, gas was the “favoured son” of the heat­ing industry. But now, much progress has been made, and insight gained into the effects of gas deposits on the envi­ron­ment. Con­se­quent­ly, many peo­ple want some­thing dif­fer­ent to heat their homes that won’t mean the envi­ron­ment is dam­aged while drilling for gas deposits.

Enter Green Energy

Green ener­gy is, sim­ply put, the kind of ener­gy that is both renew­able and nat­ur­al. For exam­ple, solar ener­gy – it’s both clean and end­less. Solar pan­els on rooftops are a per­fect exam­ple of green ener­gy that will one day, if the polit­i­cal will exists, be com­mon­place every­where from Asia to Europe to North America.

The Differences Between Clean Power, Green Power, and Reusable Power:

These terms may seem inter­change­able, but they are some­what different.  

• Green Ener­gy refers to ener­gy derived from nat­ur­al sources, such as sunlight.

 

• Renew­able Ener­gy: This refers to the ener­gy that can be recycled.

 

• Clean Ener­gy: This refers to the ener­gy that doesn’t cause air pollution.

The ide­al com­bi­na­tion, ener­gy experts say, is that of renew­able ener­gy and green ener­gy, such as wind pow­er and solar power. Clean ener­gy is also renew­able and doesn’t cause envi­ron­men­tal dam­age like fuel spills into oceans and oth­er bod­ies of water – remem­ber the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alas­ka in 1989? About 11 mil­lion gal­lons of oil poured into Prince William Sound. Ulti­mate­ly, more than 1,000 miles of Alaska’s coast­line were con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, and count­less marine mam­mals, birds and oth­er crea­tures were harmed or died as a result of the spill. It is pre­cise­ly that kind of dis­as­ter that clean ener­gy can avoid.

What Are The Other Benefits Of Clean Energy?

Here’s a look at the most impor­tant ben­e­fits, apart from avoid­ing envi­ron­men­tal disasters.

• Lots Of Eco­nom­ic Ben­e­fits. Because Cana­da (and many oth­er nations) has been depen­dent on fos­sil fuels for so long, it needs infra­struc­ture to har­ness oth­er forms of pow­er. For exam­ple, hydro­elec­tric dams need to be con­struct­ed to cre­ate elec­tric­i­ty. That means jobs, jobs and more jobs! Peo­ple who may have once worked in the oil indus­try can be trained for these kinds of employ­ment opportunities.

 

• A reduc­tion Or Elim­i­na­tion Of Air Pol­lu­tion From Ener­gy Sources. Clean ener­gy, such as solar pow­er, means no releas­ing of green­house gasses, such as car­bon monox­ide, into the atmos­phere. They are the pri­ma­ry con­trib­u­tor to glob­al warm­ing, so find­ing a reli­able source of ener­gy that stops emit­ting green­house gasses (GGH) is vital if we are to stop the warm­ing of our planet.

Renewable Means Recyclable

A shift to wind and solar pow­er means we would no longer be tap­ping into finite resources, such as gas and oil deposits. Har­ness­ing the sun’s pow­er gives the oppor­tu­ni­ty for an infi­nite pow­er sup­ply at a low­er cost. One cru­cial aspect is the inno­v­a­tive diver­si­fi­ca­tion of pow­er plants so that there is enough for our needs long into the future.

Benefits Of Each Type Of Clean Energy:

Wind Power:

We may think of wind pow­er as some­thing very new and oh so 21^st cen­tu­ry, but in fact, it’s been around for centuries! A gen­er­a­tor is attached to a wind­mill, which turns and then cre­ates pow­er. It is a type of clean ener­gy that has long been advo­cat­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ists the world over. Over the past cen­turies, many farm­ers have used wind pow­er to oper­ate grinders for their grains. That is just one appli­ca­tion; fore­cast­ers see many oth­er ways in which wind pow­er can be used in the future.

Solar Power:

The sun’s lim­it­less ener­gy is col­lect­ed and used to do many things, such as heat­ing homes, water tanks, and large build­ings. Green ener­gy experts fore­see a day when solar pan­els will pow­er whole com­mu­ni­ties in one location. Think of the small gar­den solar lamps you may have now in the back­yard – one day, the very same prin­ci­ples may be employed to heat your whole house or your entire town!

The Future Of Clean Energy:

Did you know that, in June 2020, the Unit­ed King­dom ran total­ly on clean ener­gy for two months straight? It did, which is rather astound­ing, con­sid­er­ing Britain once was reluc­tant to give up its depen­dence on coal and joined the move­ment toward green ener­gy some­what lat­er than oth­er nations. More and more coun­tries are now agree­ing that the future must be pow­ered by green ener­gy. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many nations are still heav­i­ly depen­dent on oil and gas, and it won’t be easy – or quick –  to reverse course. For exam­ple, at the recent cli­mate change con­fer­ence held in Glas­gow, Scot­land in the fall of 2021, Chi­na and India would not agree to stop their depen­dence on oil by a par­tic­u­lar date; they agreed only to lessen it. Oth­er nations were dis­ap­point­ed, as was the entire envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Spokes­peo­ple like Sweden’s Gre­ta Thun­berg were extreme­ly vocal with their crit­i­cisms of world lead­ers, say­ing enough was not achieved at the conference. On the bright side, polit­i­cal lead­ers all around the globe real­ize that their pop­u­lar­i­ty rests, in large part, on their actions regard­ing cli­mate change and green ener­gy. It is no longer enough for them to talk about future actions – cit­i­zens are demand­ing action now. Most espe­cial­ly, young peo­ple are not sat­is­fied hear­ing their par­ents and gov­ern­ment offi­cials say the prob­lems will be resolved eventually.

What Can You & Your Family Do?

Peo­ple some­times feel that the cli­mate cri­sis is just too big to tack­le, and they won­der what, if any­thing, they can do to help, oth­er than sup­port­ing the green ener­gy move­ment when it’s time to cast your ballot. Sup­port­ing politi­cians who sup­port the shift to clean ener­gy is one sig­nif­i­cant way you can help, but there are oth­ers. In short, there is a lot that you as a fam­i­ly can do!

Here Are Some Tips:

1- Consider Buying an Electric Vehicle

If you must have a car to get to work and get the kids to and from school and oth­er activ­i­ties, why not buy an elec­tric vehi­cle the next time you’re in the mar­ket for a new car? Many gov­ern­ments encour­age cit­i­zens to do so by offer­ing sig­nif­i­cant rebates on their pur­chas­es and even tax cred­its for choos­ing an elec­tric vehi­cle. Mov­ing away from gas-pow­ered cars is an essen­tial step in the move toward clean energy.

2- Replace Your Oil Furnace

Even if you can’t afford to have solar pan­els installed or aren’t prac­ti­cal because of your home’s con­struc­tion, you can still help by choos­ing to have a high-effi­cien­cy gas fur­nace installed. It’s cheap­er and less harm­ful to the envi­ron­ment than an oil furnace.

3- Set Up a Composter – & Use It Faithfully!

Are you won­der­ing what this has to do with clean ener­gy? Well, every time you reduce the garbage in your week­ly pick­up, you reduce the amount of waste your fam­i­ly puts into land­fills. It’s all part of the move­ment toward a clean­er envi­ron­ment, and it makes a difference! Plus, you’ll have rich nutri­ents for your gar­den when plant­i­ng time comes in the spring. Check out your local municipality’s web­site; many offer free com­posters and will even help you set it up and show you how to use it.

Final Thoughts

The move­ment to green, clean ener­gy is gain­ing momen­tum all across the globe. All coun­tries, includ­ing Cana­da, must com­mit to replac­ing their depen­dence on fos­sil fuels with clean ener­gy and help those in that indus­try make the change to new jobs in green power. Sci­en­tists and cli­ma­tol­o­gists say we have until approx­i­mate­ly 2050 to stop the planet’s irre­versible dam­age, but some believe that the worst could hap­pen much sooner. Regard­less of who is right, is it by 2035 or 2050 we must make the switch? The point is this: clean ener­gy is bet­ter for the plan­et, bet­ter for our chil­dren and us, and there­fore bet­ter for all. We sim­ply have to com­mit to the change, do every­thing we can as indi­vid­u­als and prod our politi­cians to do the same. Togeth­er, we can win the bat­tle against envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and imple­ment clean, green technologies.