Global Sports: Is Putting Your Money in Alternative Energy A Smart Investment?

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Is Putting Your Money in Alternative Energy A Smart Investment?

By Wendy R. Gandy


Are you looking for a place to invest your money? A good investment to think about is alternative energy sources. Many think that alternative energy production will be in the multi-billion dollar range by the year 2013. Wind-produced energy has become more economical with the advancement in wind-turbine technologies and more widespread in usage as well. This has resulted in wind technology being very competitive against more established kinds of energy producing products. Wind technology has become improved that birds are no longer getting incidentally killed.

Your investment dollars may be spent in a lot of worse places than in companies that are into wind energy production. Another area to consider investing is photovoltaic cell technology. These little solar panels are powering things like pocket calculators, flashlights, and other devices. They are also being used in bigger projects like commercial buildings and housing developments. As the cost to use these solar arrays continue to fall, the energy efficiency continues to increase. This efficiency is determined by the amount of energy necessary to produce versus the amount of energy produced.

Back in 1982, the energy conversion efficiency of silicon cells was roughly 4 percent but nowadays, it is above 20 percent. Utilizing solar cells can bring down the amount of pollution being created but it is not inexpensive enough to be an alternative to conventional electricity. Since large amounts of photovoltaic cells are required to create large amounts of electricity, they are not ready for producing electricity on a large scale. But as areas are converted to put these photovoltaic cells, the price and efficiency will get better. As companies and individuals continue to search for ways to create alternative energy, investment advisors still think that energy is a wise investment.

New forms of eco-friendly energy are coming up like tidal movements, currents and temperature changes. The concept of hydro-power generation is advancing in France and being widely researched in Scotland and America. Hydro-power has had issues previously with salt water causing metal to deteriorate but the materials utilized these days are better. Terrible storms and marine growth have likewise been disruptions to the production of energy previously. But we are aware that the timing of ocean waves and currents is really consistent thus making it a dependable energy source.

In the last few decades, money put into hydro-electric technology has increased. The energy it generates is clean but hydro-electric energy is confined by geography. Older dams have had issues with marine life causing disruption to energy production. A lot has been done to protect the marine life close to the dams but it has been expensive. As a result, there have been efforts to discover ecologically sound, low-impact ways to generate hydro-power. The bottom line is that investing in alternative energy sources equals investing in our future.




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