Renewable energy resources are ways to gather energy from sources that can be renewed, or at least won't disappear for a long time. Three of these resources are solar (sun), wind and geothermal (heat from the earth). This post will determine the best of the three in California.
Solar energy: Solar energy (hence the name) is energy from the sun.
The sun produces this energy through the process of nuclear fusion: To harness this energy, scientists built flat plates of glass, plastic and metal called solar panels. The total sunlight that reaches earth is only two billionths of the total light that is emitted from the sun. Also, the sun penetrates best through the equator whereas California is a few hundred miles away from the equator. therefore out of five, solar power in California gets a two.
Wind Energy: Wind energy comes from the wind moving the giant blades of a wind turbine with kinetic energy. Wind energy is valuable in California because, on the coast, wind power is the greatest.
Geothermal Energy: Geothermal is a form of heat energy from the earth, hence
geo=earth, and thermal=heat. Geothermal is best used in areas where molten rock is either easily accessible like a fault line or close to the surface like a volcano. California is directly on the San Andreas fault so geothermal energy is abundant. Geothermal energy is made from injecting water into the earth close to molten rock to turn it to steam and collect it to spin a turbine.
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