Sustainable energy projects are projects that produce energy without the use of finite fossil fuels, such as petroleum products (crude, oil, gasoline), natural gas, and coal. Not only do these projects produce "clean" energy by not emitting carbon into the atmosphere in their production, they don't deplete our ever shrinking fossil fuel supply.
Sustainable energy projects use "current" energy, a term used to describe energy that is either provided by the sun's heat and used relatively swiftly, like solar heated water tanks, or energy that is produced by existing industrial or commercial operations and recaptured, when it would otherwise escape as 'waste energy", specifically, energy that is heating up the planet.
Some of the most common examples of renewable energy projects include wind farms, solar photovoltaic projects (solar panels that produce electricity), solar thermal projects (solar heating and cooling), and geo-exchange (earth energy).
Examples of recycled energy projects include biomass (using waste woodchip or green bin compost to produce heat or electricity), and waste heat recapture (where industrial waste heat is used to produce local heat or grid-tied electricity).
