ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SOLAR ENERGY

Alternative energy, simply means energy that is produced from sources other than our primary energy supply: fossil fuels. Coal, oil and natural gas are the three kinds of fossil fuels that we have mostly depended on for our energy needs, from home heating and electricity to fuel for our industries, automobiles and mass transportation. The fossil fuels are of non-renewable nature. They are limited in supply and will one day they will be depleted. There is no escape from this conclusion. Fossil fuels formed from plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago and became buried underneath the Earth’s surface where their remains collectively transformed into the combustible materials that we use for fuel. In fact, the earliest known fossil fuel deposits are from the Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs emerged onto the scene. This is when most of the major groups of animals first appeared on Earth.