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What uses more energy in our homes - heating, cooling, lighting, or powering electronics like TVs, computers, and MP3 players? And, do houses in the United States use more electricity or natural gas?

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You just might be guilty of one of these top 10 habits that waste energy around your home.

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You've probably heard the term " global warming" before, but what does it mean? Is it really all that bad that the earth is getting a little warmer? Read on for the essential info.

What is Global Warming?

Climate is the pattern of over the long term. The climate has always changed, getting warmer and cooler over years. Though climate change isn't new, the speed with which the climate is changing is. Global warming is a term used to describe the increase in average global temperatures due to the greenhouse effect. But what is that?

Help stop Global Warming!

The Greenhouse Effect

Scientists generally agree that the Earth's surface has warmed by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past 140 years. That might not sound like much, but it has definitely impacted the earth. Scientists also think the rate at which the earth is heating up is increasing. The greenhouse effect is what scientists believe is causing the sharp increase in global temperatures. The earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane (from pollution) in the atmosphere, which allows incoming sunlight to pass through it but won't allow the heat to escape back out (like in a greenhouse).

The Greenhouse Effect

What's So Bad About Global Warming?

Climate change can negatively affect the earth's delicate ecosystems. Global warming has been linked to dying coral reefs, dangerous new weather patterns and the extinction of plant and animal species.

What Can You Do?

Reducing pollution helps to reduce global warming. Here are a few ideas:

Walk to school instead of getting your parents to drive you.

Don't use too much electricity. Use energy compact fluorescent light bulbs, turn off the lights when you leave a room, and don't leave the TV on when you're not using it.

Tell your parents what you know about global warming. It's important that they know as much as you do so they can vote for politicians who care about the environment.

Recycle.

Plant trees. Trees help to combat pollution by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air.

Walking to school is also great exercise

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Everyone likes warm weather so whats the problem with global warming? Check out the essential 411 on this misunderstood environmental problem.

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Wind isn't just some uncontrollable part of nature that messes up our hair or sucks up Dorothy, Toto and anything else in its way. It can't be trained but it can be put to work. The kinetic energy of wind can be changed into other forms of energy. When a boat uses a sail to push it, that is one form of wind energy at work. Farmers have been using wind energy for years to pump water from wells and turn large stones to grind wheat or corn - just like a water wheel.

Wind is also used to make electricity. Blowing wind spins the blades on a wind turbine - just like when you blow on a toy pinwheel. When the blades turn, the turbine is operating and electricity is generated. The turbine has a brake, so if the wind blows too hard, the brake can stop the blades from being damaged. Some wind turbines are up to 10 stories high and have blades as long as 50 feet. Wind turbines don't create any pollution but they can be pretty noisy.

Wind has to blow at speeds of 12 to 14 miles per hour to turn the turbines fast enough to create electricity. The turbines usually produce about 50 to 300 kilowatts of electricity each. Kilo means 1,000, so a kilowatt is 1,000 watts. You can light ten 100 watt light bulbs with 1,000 watts. This means a 300 kilowatt wind turbine could light up 3,000 light bulbs that are 100 watts.

Wind turbines are grouped together in what are called wind farms. About 30 percent of the world's electricity is made from wind in California. They have three large wind farms that create enough electricity to supply a city the size of San Francisco with power. Two countries that use a lot of wind energy are Denmark and Germany.

The world's largest wind machine is on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. The windmill has two blades, 400 feet long, on the top of a tower which is 20 stories high.

Do you have any windy day stories? Comment below if you do!

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wind energy generator solar power electricity turbine farm windmill turbines mill powered renewable resource alternative alternatives

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When someone passes wind it can be stinky and loud. Wind that has been put to work at wind farms can be really loud too. Keep reading to find out how much wind it takes to light a light bulb.

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With the price of non-renewable energy sources soaring, Kidzworld takes a look at the environmentally friendly energy source we all know and love - ! Get the goods on solar energy right here!

How It Works

Solar energy is the energy we acquire from the sun. Millions of years before humans realized the sun's potential as a renewable energy source, plants were using the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide and into sugars to eat. This process is called photosynthesis. Today, we have tried to copy plants by creating something called photovoltaic (PV) cells. These man-made cells are comprised of semiconductors, which are materials that are able to absorb light energy. The most commonly used semiconductor today is silicon because it is, so far, the most cost-effective material. The silicon absorbs a portion of the energy from the light that shines down on it, electrons are suddenly knocked free and are channeled to flow in the same direction by electric fields within the PV cell. On both the top and bottom of the silicon, metal contacts are placed and, through these contacts, the solar energy is extracted and stored.

Practical Uses

Solar energy is used for a variety of different things but the ones that you are most familiar with are solar-powered calculators, solar-heated swimming pools and maybe even the hot water in your house is heated by solar panels. Because solar energy is clean and renewable, it would be ideal to make a move from non-renewable heating sources like gas to solar on a grander scale, so research is ongoing to make solar energy a more cost-effective alternative for people around the world.

Did U Know?

Solar energy is measured in kilowatt-hours. One kilowatt hour (kWh) is the amount of energy needed to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours.

Enough sunlight falls to every hour to meet the world's energy demands for an entire year - the trick is learning how to extract that energy in a cost-effective way.

Approximately 10,000 homes in the United States are run entirely on solar power.

Solar energy can even be used to cook food!

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With the price of non-renewable energy sources soaring, Kidzworld takes a look at the environmentally friendly energy source we all know and love - ! Get the goods on solar energy right here! Solar energy is the energy we acquire from the sun.

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Hydro Energy - Reviewed by on Dec 27, 2006

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Its hard to imagine that water can be used to create electricity. The two are a dangerous combination that should never mix, right. True, so never bring your stereo in the shower with you.

Hydro energy is electricity made using water. Sounds weird, right? Especially since it's dangerous to mix the two. The water never comes in contact with the electricity. How it works is, water flowing down a river is used to spin turbines inside a generator. Large rivers with fast flowing water work the best.

Hydroelectricity

Hydro Facts

Canada is the largest producer of hydropower in the world. The United States is second.

Hydropower is clean. It doesn't produce any greenhouse gases or other air pollution. It also doesn't generate any waste products that might need special handling or disposal. Because it's carbon-free energy, hydropower doesn't burn fossil fuels, which release the same amount of carbon dioxide as the annual exhaust of 62.2 million cars (half the cars on US roads.)

With the good, comes the bad. Hydropower doesn't pollute the air but large hydroelectric generating stations can damage the environment. The natural flow of water to the sea can sometimes be changed, which harms plant and animal communities along the way.

Like solar and wind energy, electricity from water is renewable. Water from rivers is a natural resource so it doesn't come with some of the problems other energy sources have, such as cost and insufficient amounts. Hydropower converts kinetic energy from falling water into electricity and never uses up more water than nature produces.

Hydro Energy

Hydropower doesn't cost a lot of money. On average, the cost for hydropower operations and maintenance is only one-third the cost of a nuclear or a fossil fuel powered facility. That's not including fuel costs. Lower costs mean more jobs and also helps the economy.

Another good thing about hydropower is it's flexible and reliable. Hydropower can be turned on almost immediately to meet the fast growing electricity demands. Facilities can easily respond to emergency power situations (like when California had their power crisis) and provide constant energy with water.

If you have a stream running through your backyard does that mean you could use it to create energy? Possibly. If you live near the ocean you might even be able to use the energy from waves to make electricity in the future.

Tell us your electifying stories about energy. Ever been zapped before?

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Hydro Energy - Reviewed by on Dec 27, 2006 ( Rating: ) Its hard to imagine that water can be used to create electricity. The two are a dangerous combination that should never mix, right. True, so never bring your stereo in the shower with you. Hydro energy is electricity made using water.

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If you kept digging, what would you find? You'd probably find lots of worms, roots, and a few dog bones. But if you went really far down, you'd get geothermal energy.

Geothermal Energy - What Is Geothermal Energy?

If you take the word geothermal apart, you get " geo" which means earth and " thermal" which means heat, so geothermal means heat from the Earth. Geothermal energy taps into the Earth's internal heat to create electricity and to heat and cool buildings.

Geothermal Energy - A Look into the Earth

To get an idea of what looks like, boil an egg and then cut it in half without peeling the shell. The yellow yoke is like the core of the Earth, the white part is the mantle of the Earth and the thin shell around the egg is the Earth's crust. The Earth's mantle consists of hot, liquid rock called magma (that's the stuff that shoots out of an erupting volcano) and the crust floats on this liquid.

If you're wondering what that has to do with geothermal energy, check this out: when makes its way down close to the hot rock hundreds of feet below the surface, it turns to hot water or steam. The hot water can reach over 300 degrees Fahrenheit or 148 degrees Celsius - that's hotter than boiling water! This hot water from deep in the ground can be used to warm buildings, swimming pools and make electricity.

Geothermal Energy - Getting Steamy

Geothermal power plants use the steam from hot water to produce electricity. The steam rotates a turbine that activates a generator, which produces electricity. There are three types of geothermal power plants:

Dry Steam - The steam goes directly from underground wells to a power plant. The largest dry steam resource in the world is The Geysers, which is in California.

Flash Steam - These are the most common. They use reservoirs of water that are hotter than 360 degrees Fahrenheit (182 degrees Celsius). The hot water flows up wells in the ground under its own pressure and some of it turns to steam. This steam is separated from the water and used to turn a turbine.

Binary Cycle - These plants use water that is about 225 to 360 degrees Fahrenheit (107 to 182 degrees Celsius). The heat from the hot water is used to boil a working fluid (usually an organic compound that boils easily), which vaporizes in a heat exchanger (a device for transferring thermal from one fluid to another) and is then used to turn a turbine.

Geothermal Energy - Did U Know?

The US produces the most geothermal energy in the world.

In the US, geothermal electricity is generated in California, Nevada, Utah, Alaska and Hawaii.

Unlike wind and solar energy, geothermal resources are available 24/7.

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If you kept digging, what would you find? You'd probably find lots of worms, roots, and a few dog bones. But if you went really far down, you'd get geothermal energy. If you take the word geothermal apart, you get " geo" which means earth and " thermal" which means heat, so geothermal means heat from the Earth.

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Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources that formed more than 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period - long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Fossil fuels are made up of plant and animal matter. When plants and animals died, their bodies decomposed and were buried under layers of earth. Millions of years later we have the three forms of fossil fuel: oil, natural gas and coal.

Fossil Fuel Energy - Oil

Oil is a thick, black, gooey liquid also called petroleum. It's found way down in the ground, usually between layers of rock. To get oil out, a well is dug. Digging a well is like putting a straw into a can of pop. The oil is then pumped out of the ground, just like when you suck pop up the straw. Oil is carried in pipelines and large tanker ships. A refinery changes the oil into products like gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel. It's also burned in factories and power plants to make electricity. The oil is burned, which produces gases that turn a turbine to create electricity.

Industrial oil pump jack pumping crude oil for fossil fuel energy with drilling rig in oil field Courtesy of Flystock

Fossil Fuel Energy - Natural Gas

Natural gas is lighter than air. Natural gas is made out of methane, which is a simple chemical compound made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms. This gas is highly flammable! Natural gas is found near oil in the ground. It's pumped, just like oil, from wells that tap into the source and send it to large pipelines. Because you can't smell or see natural gas, it is mixed with a chemical to give it a stinky smell - like rotten eggs. That way, it's easy to tell if there's a leak.

After the stinky chemical is added, the natural gas is sent through underground pipes which go to your home so you can cook food and heat your house. It's also sent to factories and power plants to make electricity. Natural gas is burned to produce heat, which boils water, creating steam, which passes through a turbine to generate electricity.

Fossil Fuel Energy - Coal

Coal comes in several different forms from hard black rocks (that's the kind you get in your stocking at Christmas) to soft brown dirt. Some forms burn hotter and cleaner than others. Coal is used to create more than half of all the electricity made in the US. In the states, many of the coal beds are near the ground's surface. We get to the coal by mining for it. Most coal is transported by trains to power plants where it's burned to make steam. The steam turns turbines, which produce electricity.

Courtesy of Peabody Energy, Inc.

Have Your Say

Do you know how your home is heated? Or do you live in a grass hut and don't need electricity?

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That lump of coal you get in your stocking for Christmas could be used to heat your house or cook dinner. Like oil, petroleum and natrual gas, coal is a fossil fuel that is widely used all over North America.

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Phantom energy can be scary for the energy bill your parents pay, but no actual phantoms or ghosts are involved. All of the things in our home or car that are plugged in can be sucking energy, even when not in use - even when turned off! This is called phantom energy. Our devices keep using energy in this state because all of those electronics are standing by ready to jump back to life when you need them. In fact, your TVs standby (or phantom) power usage can make up to 10% of its total power usage.

Did you know there are 20 to 40 devices in the average home hanging out in the standby mode? Not only does that waste energy, it costs money.

What can you do? Unplug your cell phone and laptop charger when you're not using them. Unplug other devices with your parents' permission. Also, there are "smart" power strips that will help make shutting off unused devices easier.

Find lots more information on saving energy at powerhousetv.com!

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Phantom energy can be scary for the energy bill your parents pay, but no actual phantoms or ghosts are involved. All of the things in our home or car that are plugged in can be sucking energy, even when not in use - even when turned off! This is called phantom energy.