Alternative energy seems to be all the rage today, but a lot of people have are unsure of what it is or have different definitions. I hope this article clears things up,

One way to approach a definition of alternative energy is to consider what “regular” energy is. Ever since the mid 19th century, fossil fuels such as coal and oil have provided an increasing proportion of our energy needs. Fossil fuels have become the energy standard against which other forms of energy are considered alternative.

However our reliance on fossil fuels is relatively recent. It wasn’t that long ago that ships were powered by sales and horses move goods and people on land.

A windmill by a ranch house is an icon of the American west because thousands of windmills were used to provide power to pump water before electricity was available.

Another example of earlier uses of what we now consider alternative energy is solar hot water heating. Several progressively better and more convenient solar water heating systems were available commercially in the early 1900s. At one point nearly 1/3 of the homes in Florida use solar hot water.

As you consider the above and similar facts I think you can see that the dominance of fossil fuels has been very brief and very recent. As it becomes harder and more expensive to meet our energy needs with fossil fuel, we need to return to other sources.

So for now we’ll consider alternative energy to be any source of energy that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels to create it.

We should make a distinction between alternative energy and renewable energy. People tend to assume that they’re one and the same but they aren’t. Some non-fossil fuel energy sources can be depleted.

However most sources of alternative energy are renewable as well as better for the environment than fossil fuel. That is why there is such interest in these types of energy these days.

Although most people think about solar panels and windmills when they think about alternative energy, the field is really much broader than that. it’s very exciting to see all the research being done in areas such as biomass, tidal power, geothermal, solar chimneys and so forth.

I think we can safely expect that the use of all forms of alternative energy will increase until they become the new standard.