Eco-friendly technology (also known as sustainable technology) is a means of taking energy and converting it into usable power such as electricity, home heating, and so on... but from renewable resources which do not harm the environment. In other words, utilizing resources such as solar power which is constantly renewable, as opposed to burning off fossil fuels which only gets consumed without the source being renewed, and just adds to the growing carbon footprint we are stomping upon the Earth. What are some of these resources and how can we use them today? Let's take a look...
One kind of eco-friendly technology, as mentioned above, is solar energy. Since its big boom of popularity in the seventies, the energy output of photovoltaic cells ("solar panels") has greatly increased, along with the efficiency of its production, from more efficient and less expensive materials. Where it used to cost many thousands of dollars decades ago to cover a small home's roof with an array of solar panels to power most of the homes appliances, being only able to pay for itself many years down the road, these days people are spending less than a couple hundred dollars on cheaply procurable components to build a single solar panel on a weekend project to power a handful of appliances on the single panel alone.
Another type of eco-friendly technology involves the use of geothermal power. By driving a network of pipes into the ground below a house's foundation and running water through them, the heat from the Earth is transferred into the water which is then pumped through the house. This heated water provides the home with hot water and can also be converted into usable electricity through the use of heat exchangers and heat pump generators. This type of energy extraction from the surrounding environment is also utilizing a renewable resource, as the heat taken is constantly being provided by the sun as the Earth stores it day by day. It could actually be considered a solar-geothermal system at work here.
One final eco-friendly technology type we can look at here is wind power. There are many homes today which are fully powered by one or two windmill powered electricity generators, hooked up to battery cells much like those used for forklifts in order to store the surplus electricity generated and regulate the flow of it for constant in-home use for appliances and heating or air-conditioning equipment. These are just a few of the many ways in which we can take free energy from the surrounding environment in order to benefit from what nature gives us in constant supply, instead of relying upon the burning of fossil fuels which only get consumed and return pollution to the Earth and its environments.
One kind of eco-friendly technology, as mentioned above, is solar energy. Since its big boom of popularity in the seventies, the energy output of photovoltaic cells ("solar panels") has greatly increased, along with the efficiency of its production, from more efficient and less expensive materials. Where it used to cost many thousands of dollars decades ago to cover a small home's roof with an array of solar panels to power most of the homes appliances, being only able to pay for itself many years down the road, these days people are spending less than a couple hundred dollars on cheaply procurable components to build a single solar panel on a weekend project to power a handful of appliances on the single panel alone.
Another type of eco-friendly technology involves the use of geothermal power. By driving a network of pipes into the ground below a house's foundation and running water through them, the heat from the Earth is transferred into the water which is then pumped through the house. This heated water provides the home with hot water and can also be converted into usable electricity through the use of heat exchangers and heat pump generators. This type of energy extraction from the surrounding environment is also utilizing a renewable resource, as the heat taken is constantly being provided by the sun as the Earth stores it day by day. It could actually be considered a solar-geothermal system at work here.
One final eco-friendly technology type we can look at here is wind power. There are many homes today which are fully powered by one or two windmill powered electricity generators, hooked up to battery cells much like those used for forklifts in order to store the surplus electricity generated and regulate the flow of it for constant in-home use for appliances and heating or air-conditioning equipment. These are just a few of the many ways in which we can take free energy from the surrounding environment in order to benefit from what nature gives us in constant supply, instead of relying upon the burning of fossil fuels which only get consumed and return pollution to the Earth and its environments.
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