Geothermal Energy – energy from the Earth

Wave Energy – energy from sea waves
Renewable
No pollution, because nothing gets burned
The sea’s waves have kinetic energy. Using machines that bob up and down in the waves, this energy can be turned into electrical energy which we can use in our homes.
Need lots of machines to get a reasonable amount of energy
The machines costs a lot of money
The machines can look ugly
The machines can be damaged by storms
wave energy machines bobbing up and down in the waves

Hydroelectric Energy – energy from rivers
Renewable
No pollution, because nothing gets burned
We can store the water up high, and then whenever we need the energy we can let the water out
The water flowing in a river has kinetic energy. We can turn this into electrical energy to use in our homes. We usually need to build a dam, and let the water flow through it gradually.
Costs a lot of money to build a dam
The dam can ruin the local environment, because it changes where the water naturally flows. Some animals and plants may die.

Tidal Energy – energy from sea tides
At high tide, we trap the water behind a dam.
At low tide, the water is released, and its energy is used to generate electricity.
Renewable
No pollution, because nothing gets burned
Reliable, because there are always two tides every day
Cheap to run, once it’s built
Costs a lot to build the dam
The dam may cause local flooding
If you’ve ever been to the coast, you may have noticed that the sea level goes up and down, because of tides. When the tide is high, the water has lots of gravitational potential energy, which we can turn into electrical energy to use in our homes.

Solar Energy – energy from the Sun
Renewable
No pollution, because nothing gets burned
Solar cells and solar panels are expensive
Only works if it’s sunny!
The Earth gets heat and light energy from the sun all the time. Can we use it – yes we can! The Sun’s energy can either be:
changed into electrical energy to use in homes, using solar cells;
or used to heat water for homes, using solar panels.

Wind Energy – energy from the wind
Renewable
No pollution, because nothing gets burned
Turbines are quite cheap and easy to build, so they can be used even in poor countries
Turbines can be ugly and noisy
Only works if it’s quite windy! If the wind stops, you get no energy.
Using wind turbines, we can turn the kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy which we can use in our homes. This is ‘wind energy’.