Energy is the basis of today's highly technically developed world. Coal enabled entry into the industrial era, oil revolutionized transport and reduced distances, and nuclear energy enabled further development and opened up many issues. Today, however, when the use of energy has reached such a level as to estimate that fossil fuel supplies will soon be depleted, renewable energy sources, but also energy efficiency, are becoming more and more important.
Energy can be divided into primary, transformed and useful forms of energy.
Primary energy forms are those in nature or appearing in it, and can be divided into renewable and non-renewable. Primary forms of energy cannot generally be used in their natural form and are transformed into a more favourable form of energy, either because they cannot be used in the primary form, or the use in a transformed form is more technically feasible and more economical, or because transport in the primary form is not possible. Consumers need a certain form of energy (heat, mechanical energy, electrical energy), which depends on its purpose.
Renewable sources of energy include:
- kinetic wind energy (wind energy),
- Solar energy,
- biomass,
- the thermal energy of the Earth's interior and hot springs (geothermal energy),
- Potential Water Power (Water Power)
- Potential energy of tide and oceans and sea waves,
- Thermal energy of the sea.
Non-renewable energy sources include coal, crude oil, natural gas (fossil fuels) and nuclear energy.
It has recently become apparent that energy supply in the future will have to be both economically and ecologically sustainable. The use of renewable sources and the formation of a closed cycle of production, use of energy and the use of waste energy becomes the most important point of all future development and energy supply strategies.
