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Renewable Energy: Answering The 10 Most-Googled Questions

critical thinking questions on renewable resources

Your renewable energy questions

2019 was a record year for renewable energy: with wind, solar, hydro and biomass power outpacing fossil fuels for a total of 137 days.

Renewable energy’s 9% growth in the last 12 months is the result of an increased focus on combating climate change and the continued efforts to reduce carbon footprints.

As a society, we are slowly but surely turning away from fossil fuels and toxic emissions and diverting our attention towards greener alternatives, with more and more people asking the right questions when it comes to saving our planet.

So, what questions have people been asking about renewable energy and the environment? Our team have looked into the most-Googled queries regarding clean energy, and answered each and every one of them below.

The 10 Most-Googled Questions

1) why is renewable energy important.

Renewable energy is pivotal to creating a more sustainable future for our planet. Not only does it help to conserve our natural resources, but clean, renewable, green energy also significantly reduces the greenhouse gases that have so heavily polluted our atmosphere.

We need power and electricity as part of our everyday lives, and the only way to provide this without further contributing to global warming and the climate crisis is to generate it through cleaner, sustainable sources such as wind power, solar panels, hydroelectricity and other forms of renewable power.

2) Why is renewable energy expensive?

Renewable energy does have a reputation as being expensive in the eyes of some. This is because, to build the initial renewable energy generators such as wind turbines and solar panels does require investment.

However, this investment will save you a lot of money in the long run. The installation costs may seem steep for some, but with a significantly reduced reliance on the national grid through the generation of your own electricity, you’ll soon see your monthly energy bills slashed.

More information on this can be found in our blog: Does going green save you money?

If you cannot afford to install your own renewable sources, fear not. More and more energy suppliers are now providing their own green energy. Click here to learn who supplies renewable energy in the UK.

3) Why is renewable energy sustainable?

The clue is in the name. Renewable energy such as wind and solar power is sustainable because it is recyclable. Unlike fossil fuels such as coal, petrol and diesel, it will never run out.

Renewable energy meets the growing demands of consumers and are naturally replenishable. It really is a win, win for everyone!

4) What renewable energy sources are there?

There are five main types of renewable energy:

Solar power
Geothermal power
Hydroelectric power
Biomass power

To learn more about these, check out our blog: What are the types of renewable energy?

5) What renewable energy is the best?

The answer to this question is subjective. It depends on the circumstances, wants, needs and location of each individual user or business.

If, for instance, you live by the coast in cooler, less sunny climates, wind turbines would be the most viable option in terms of generating the most power. This is why offshore wind farms have become such a success.

On the other hand, if you live in sunnier, warmer climates with less wind, solar panels would be the best option.

There is a lot to consider when answering this question, with many variables regarding sustainability, usability and environmental impact. For example, while biomass is the most widely used renewable energy, it is not entirely greenhouse gas emission-free due to transportation and importing.

To learn more about renewable energy sources and how our green products can help improve self-consumption and sustainability, get in touch with our team for the advice you seek.

6) What renewable energy does the UK use?

Last year, renewable energy overtook fossil fuels for the first time ever in the UK. The main renewable power sources we currently use are wind turbines, solar panels and biomass plants.

The UK’s commitment to renewable energy is underlined by the significant investments in the Hornsea Offshore Wind Farm, the largest of its kind in the world! Check out our guide to discover just how much of the UK is powered by renewable energy.

7) How does renewable energy work?

Renewable energy works by generating power through natural resources, whether that’s heat via solar panels, kinetic via wind turbines and so on.

To learn how each individual source of renewable energy works, check out our guides below:

8) How does renewable energy benefit the environment?

Renewable energy is a massive positive for the environment and our collective mission to create a more sustainable future for our planet. Why? Because it reduces our reliance on fossil fuels that have plagued our atmosphere with greenhouse gases for many years now.

Through putting our faith in cleaner alternatives, we’ll be much more likely to avoid the seemingly irreversible damage to our natural resources.

9) How does renewable energy reduce climate change?

“Renewable energy minimises carbon pollution and has a much lower impact on our environment,” says World Wildlife Magazine.

For years now, we have relied on coal and oil to power our homes, and petrol and diesel to power our motors. When fossil fuels such as these are burned, huge amounts of carbon dioxide are released into the air. This greenhouse gas traps heat in our atmosphere, causing extreme weather, sea level rises and the ice caps to melt.

Renewable energy resources such as solar and wind do not release greenhouse gases, and are therefore much cleaner for the earth’s atmosphere.

10) How was renewable energy discovered?

Renewable energy has actually been used all over the world for many centuries, stemming way back to 200 BC, when water wheels were used in a similar way to how we now use hydropower.

You only have to look at the 1500s to see similar technology being used in the form of windmills, particularly in the Netherlands. It was not until the 1860s that solar energy was first referenced, with French investor Augustin Mouchot inventing the world’s first solar energy system.

For a full timeline of renewable energy, discover the history of it with the help of Project Solar UK.

Got more questions about renewable energy?

Our team is incredibly passionate about renewable power and sustainability, and are more than happy to discuss the ins and outs of clean energy.

Whether you’d like to learn more about our green energy products – each of which helps to reduce your carbon footprint and energy bills – or simply want to discover how you can make positive changes to our environment, get in touch today!

News from the Columbia Climate School

Six Tough Questions About Climate Change

NASA's supercomputer model created this simulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Photo: NASA/GSFC

Whenever the focus is on climate change, as it is right now at the Paris climate conference , tough questions are asked concerning the costs of cutting carbon emissions, the feasibility of transitioning to renewable energy, and whether it’s already too late to do anything about climate change. We posed these questions to Laura Segafredo , manager for the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project . The decarbonization project comprises energy research teams from 16 of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries that are developing concrete strategies to reduce emissions in their countries. The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project is an initiative of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network .

Will the actions we take today be enough to forestall the direct impacts of climate change? Or is it too little too late?

There is still time and room for limiting climate change within the 2˚C limit that scientists consider relatively safe, and that countries endorsed in Copenhagen and Cancun. But clearly the window is closing quickly. I think that the most important message is that we need to start really, really soon, putting the world on a trajectory of stabilizing and reducing emissions. The temperature change has a direct relationship with the cumulative amount of emissions that are in the atmosphere, so the more we keep emitting at the pace that we are emitting today, the more steeply we will have to go on a downward trajectory and the more expensive it will be.

Today we are already experiencing an average change in global temperature of .8˚. With the cumulative amount of emissions that we are going to emit into the atmosphere over the next years, we will easily reach 1.5˚ without even trying to change that trajectory.

Assateague Island National Seashore where the potential for storm surges and flooding is higher due to sea level rise.

Two degrees might still be doable, but it requires significant political will and fast action. And even 2˚ is a significant amount of warming for the planet, and will have consequences in terms of sea level rise, ecosystem changes, possible extinctions of species, displacements of people, diseases, agriculture productivity changes, health related effects and more. But if we can contain global warming within those 2˚, we can manage those effects. I think that’s really the message of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports—that’s why the 2˚ limit was chosen, in a sense. It’s a level of warming where we can manage the risks and the consequences. Anything beyond that would be much, much worse.

Will taking action make our lives better or safer, or will it only make a difference to future generations?

It will make our lives better and safer for sure. For example, let’s think about what it means to replace a coal power plant with a cleaner form of energy like wind or solar. People that live around the coal power plant are going to have a lot less air pollution, which means less asthma for children, and less time wasted because of chronic or acute diseases. In developing countries, you’re talking about potentially millions of lives saved by replacing dirty fossil fuel based power generation with clean energy.

It will also have important consequences for agricultural productivity. There’s a big risk that with the concentration of carbon and other gases in the atmosphere, agricultural yields will be reduced, so preventing that means more food for everyone.

Light rail in Seattle. Photo: Michael B.

And then think about cities. If you didn’t have all that pollution from cars, we could live in cities that are less noisy, where the air’s much better, and have potentially better transportation. We could live in better buildings where appliances are more efficient. And investing in energy efficiency would basically leave more money in our pockets. So there are a lot of benefits that we can reap almost immediately, and that’s without even considering the biggest benefit—leaving a planet in decent condition for future generations.

How will measures to cut carbon emissions affect my life in terms of cost?

To build a climate resilient economy, we need to incorporate the three pillars of energy system transformation that we focus on in all the deep decarbonization pathways. Number one is improving energy efficiency in every part of the economy—buildings, what we use inside buildings, appliances, industrial processes, cars…everything you can think of can perform the same service, but using less energy. What that means is that you will have a slight increase in the price in the form of a small investment up front, like insulating your windows or buying a more efficient car, but you will end up saving a lot more money over the life of the equipment in terms of decreased energy costs.

Tehachapi wind farm, CA. Photo: Stan Shebs

The second pillar is making electricity, the power sector, carbon-free by replacing dirty power generation with clean power sources. That’s clearly going to cost a little money, but those costs are coming down so quickly. In fact there are already a lot of clean technologies that are at cost parity with fossil fuels— for example, onshore wind is already as competitive as gas—and those costs are only coming down in the future. We can also expect that there are going to be newer technologies. But in any event, the fact that we’re going to use less power because of the first pillar should actually make it a wash in terms of cost.

The Australian deep decarbonization teams have estimated that even with the increased costs of cleaner cars, and more efficient equipment for the home, etc., when the power system transitions to where it’s zero carbon, you still have savings on your energy bills compared to the previous situation.

The third pillar that we think about are clean fuels, essentially zero-carbon fuels. So we either need to electrify everything— like cars and heating, once the power sector is free of carbon—or have low-carbon fuels to power things that cannot be electrified, such as airplanes or big trucks. But once you have efficiency, these types of equipment are also more efficient, and you should be spending less money on energy.

Saving money depends on the three pillars together, thinking about all this as a whole system.

Given that renewable sources provide only a small percentage of our energy and that nuclear power is so expensive, what can we realistically do to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible?

There are a lot of studies that have been done for the U.S. and for Europe that show that it’s very realistic to think of a power sector that is almost entirely powered by renewables by 2050 or so. It’s actually feasible—and this considers all the issues with intermittency, dealing with the networks, and whatever else represents a technological barrier—that’s all included in these studies. There’s also the assumption that energy storage, like batteries, will be cheaper in the future.

That is the future, but 2050 is not that far away. 35 years for an energy transition is not a long time. It’s important that this transition start now with the right policy incentives in place. We need to make sure that cars are more efficient, that buildings are more efficient, that cities are built with more public transit so less fossil fuels are needed to transport people from one place to another.

I don’t want people to think that because we’re looking at 2050, that means that we can wait—in order to be almost carbon free by 2050, or close to that target, we need to act fast and start now.

Will the remedies to climate change be worse than the disease? Will it drive more people into poverty with higher costs?

I actually think the opposite is true. If we just let climate go the way we are doing today by continuing business as usual, that will drive many people into poverty. There’s a clear relationship between climate change and changing weather patterns, so more significant and frequent extreme weather events, including droughts, will affect the livelihoods of a large portion of the world population. Once you have droughts or significant weather events like extreme precipitation, you tend to see displacements of people, which create conflict, and conflict creates disease.

Syrian Kurdish refugees enter Turkey. Photo: EC/ECHO

I think Syria is a good example of the world that we might be going towards if we don’t do anything about climate change. Syria is experiencing a once-in-a-century drought, and there’s a significant amount of desertification going on in those areas, so you’re looking at more and more arid areas. That affects agriculture, so people have moved from the countryside to the cities and that has created a lot of pressure on the cities. The conflict in Syria is very much related to the drought, and the drought can be ascribed to climate change.

And consider the ramifications of the Syrian crisis: the refugee crisis in Europe, terrorism, security concerns and 7 million-plus people displaced. I think that that’s the world that we’re going towards. And in a world like that, when you have to worry about people being safe and alive, you certainly cannot guarantee wealth and better well-being, or education and health.

So finally, doing what needs to be done to combat climate change all comes down to political will?

The majority of the American public now believe that climate change is real, that it’s human induced and that we should do something about it.

But there’s seems to be a disconnect between what these numbers seem to indicate and what the political discourse is like… I can’t understand it, yet it seems to be the situation.

I’m a little concerned because other more immediate concerns like terrorism and safety always come first. Because the effects of climate change are going to be felt a little further away, people think that we can always put it off. The Department of Defense, its top-level people, have made the connection between climate change and conflict over the next few decades. That’s why I would argue that Syria is actually a really good example to remind us that if we are experiencing security issues today, it’s also because of environmental problems. We cannot ignore them.

The reality is that we need to do something about climate change fast—we don’t have time to fight this over the next 20 years. We have to agree on this soon and move forward and not waste another 10 years debating.

Read the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project 2015 report . The full report will be released Dec. 2.

Laura Segafredo was a senior economist at the ClimateWorks Foundation, where she focused on best practice energy policies and their impact on emission trajectories. She was a lead author of the 2012 UNEP Emissions Gap Report and of the Green Growth in Practice Assessment Report. Before joining ClimateWorks, Segafredo was a research economist at Electricité de France in Paris.

She obtained her Ph.D. in energy studies and her BA in economics from the University of Padova (Italy), and her MSc in economics from the University of Toulouse (France).

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Many find low wages prohibits saving. Changing personal vehicles and heating systems costs. Will there be financial support for people on low wages?

The energy innovation and dividend bill has already been introduced in the house. It’s a carbon fee and dividend plan. The carbon fee rises every year and 100% of it goes back directly into the hands of the people by a check each month. This helps offset rising costs, especially for lower income folks.

81 cosponsors now Tell your rep in Congress to support this HR 763!

Results show that yields for all four crops grown at levels of carbon dioxide remaining at 2000 levels would experience severe declines in yield due to higher temperatures and drier conditions. But when grown at doubled carbon dioxide levels, all four crops fare better due to increased photosynthesis and crop water productivity, partially offsetting the impacts from those adverse climate changes. For wheat and soybean crops, in terms of yield the median negative impacts are fully compensated, and rice crops recoup up to 90 percent and maize up to 60 percent of their losses.

When is Russia, China, and Mexico going to work toward a better environment instead of the United States trying to do it all? They continue to pollute like they have for years. Who is going to stop the deforestation of the rain forest?

I’m curious if climate change has any effect on seismic activity. It seems with ice melting on the poles and increasing water dispersement and temp of that water, it might cause the plates to shift to compensate. Is there any evidence of this?

this isn’t because of doldrums or jet streams. the pattern keeps having the same action. we must save trees :3

How long do we have, before it’s too late?

Climate Change isn’t nearly as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. Meaning no disrespect to the author, but I really don’t see how this is something that we should be worrying about given that one human recycling their soda cans or getting their old phone refurbished rather than dumping it isn’t going to restore the polar ice caps or lower the temperature of the planet. And supposedly agriculture is the problem, but I point-blank refuse to give up my beef night, or bacon and eggs for breakfast on Saturdays. Also, nuclear power is supposed to be a solution, but the building of the power plants is going to add more greenhouse gases than the plant will take out. The whole planet needs a reality check. Earth isn’t going to explode because it’s slightly hotter than it used to be!

Thank you and I need in your help

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How to Teach Students About Renewable Energy

| By Gale Staff |

What is renewable energy? Renewable energy is energy derived from natural sources that regenerate at a higher rate than people consume them. For example, sunlight and wind are renewable energy sources that are constantly being replenished naturally in the environment.

Conversely, fossil fuels—like coal, oil, and gas—are non-renewable resources that take millions of years to form. We use fossil fuels at a much faster pace than they can regenerate. Experts agree that transitioning from fossil fuels, which currently account for most emissions, to renewable energy is key to addressing the climate crisis.

The topic of renewable energy can be studied in your science, environmental studies, or engineering classes. Educators can use Gale resources to teach students about different types of renewable resources, their benefits, history, and how to think critically about future innovation. With Gale In Context , you can discover digital content that seamlessly adds to your renewable energy lesson plan. Plus, Gale In Context resources can support student learning at any age. Content is categorized by grade level and constantly updated—ensuring students are connected to age-appropriate, unbiased materials.

Engage Elementary Learners

It’s never too early to get your students excited about science, and Gale In Context: Elementary is designed specifically for young learners. This curriculum-aligned resource is easy to use and packed with visuals to help your students feel motivated and confident about self-guided learning.

Gale In Context: Elementary introduces children to renewable energy with a topic overview that includes eye-catching headers, fun fonts, and simple facts—i.e., renewable energy sources are cleaner than fossil fuels . As students scroll, they’ll discover clearly organized sections for book and magazine articles, all from kid-friendly sources. The different sub-sections list a handful of top resources, so young researchers can navigate the topic in more manageable chunks rather than an endless list of search engine links.

Classroom Activity Idea: Ask students to explore one source of renewable energy using Gale In Context: Elementary; encourage them to get creative by making a visual collage of their findings.

Help Middle Schoolers Develop Research Skills

As middle school students grow, Gale In Context evolves alongside them. The content housed in Gale In Context: Middle School is a bit more advanced and prepares middle school students for the research skills they’ll need to succeed in high school. Allow your young teens to dive into current articles from major publications or listen to audio files from news outlets . Gale’s search results are designed to encourage middle schoolers, featuring engaging content, visual design, and authoritative publications geared toward young researchers.

Classroom Activity Idea: Have students research renewable energy in Gale In Context: Middle School and write a paper about what they predict energy sources will look like 50 years from now in their hometown.

Inspire High School Students to Think Critically

As you prepare your high school students for academic research, use Gale In Context: High School as a hub to develop information literacy and critical-thinking skills. Students can immediately engage with interdisciplinary content, whether they’re exploring the intersection of renewable energy and business , engineering , economics , or current events . With a quick keyword search, your students can instantly find a helpful, in-depth summary of renewable energy and dozens of embedded hyperlinks for further reading. Encourage your students to thoroughly explore a sub-topic of their choosing, such as wind power , solar power , geothermal energy , tidal power , biomass , or another alternative energy.

Classroom Activity Idea: Ask students to research two renewable energy sources to compare their uses, benefits, environmental impact, costs, and more. Have them take a stance on which energy source is more beneficial long-term and explain why, citing sources from Gale In Context: High School .

Explain Opposing Viewpoints on Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is a politicized issue, and debate around renewable energy’s role in the modern world is a critical skill for the modern learner. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints provides students with articles, videos, audio clips, and other digital content covering all sides of current issues, allowing learners to understand opposing views and create their own informed opinions. Renewable energy’s place in the energy sector can be a controversial subject, so it’s essential that your students engage with impartial, reliable research materials. With traditional search engines, you can never guarantee what your students might stumble upon. Opposing Viewpoints can assist your students in learning about all sides of an issue from reputable sources.

Students can begin their research with Featured Viewpoints , a subsection of articles that highlights how this topic is trending in the national conversation. Are renewable energy sources as clean and reliable as climate change activists think? Should nuclear power be included in renewable energy advancements? What should the federal government’s role be in the energy sector?

With Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints , students can discover primary sources , infographics , key statistics , videos , and more to help them understand each side’s answers to controversial renewable energy questions.

Classroom Activity Idea: It’s time for a debate! Divide your students into groups and have them lead an informed debate about whether it’s time for the United States to eliminate fossil fuels and transition to renewable resources, citing resources in Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints .

Integrating Gale In Context into your lesson plans can help you introduce all students to today’s complex topics and develop key skills for future learning. No matter your student’s grade level or technical skills, Gale In Context ‘s digital content is user-friendly, with meaningful search features, helpful translation resources, and citation tools. Any user can simply search “renewable energy” and find hundreds of relevant results.

Don’t have access to Gale In Context ? Learn more about the resources or contact your rep today.

More From Forbes

Energy innovation requires critical thinking. here's how to build that..

Students who can’t understand energy as a scientific concept will be less prepared to lead the technical and policy transformations required to power a growing world.

The need for a scientifically literate population has never been greater. Luckily, we know a lot about what works to give students these skills.

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A multi-ethnic group of students sits in a lecture hall listening to their professor off-screen. ... [+] They are taking notes with serious looks on their faces.

In science, energy is loosely defined as the ability to do work. It exists in a number of forms – chemical, mechanical, thermal – and is an important scientific concept because it plays a role in all branches of science, including biology, chemistry and physics. That scientific concept – included in science classes from kindergarten to grade 12 – and the skills students must develop to understand it also play an important role in our efforts to build a science-literate energy workforce.

Understanding energy as a scientific concept is a pre-requisite to understanding the demands that will be required to work on innovations ranging from self-driving cars to micro electric grids and zero-emission fuels.

We’re not there yet. Many children hold misconceptions about energy. For example, children often believe energy is “used up”, and once it is used, it disappears. Another misconception is that an object at rest has no energy or is not under any forces. Research also show that older students often have difficulty developing a deep understanding about the basic energy concepts and applying those ideas to everyday situations. A previous study revealed that over half of high school seniors held misconceptions about fundamental ideas regarding energy.

There are several reasons for that: students’ don’t have a deep conceptual understanding of the topic, partly because scientific curriculums tend to focus on established knowledge, and classroom activities emphasize students’ confirmation of this knowledge. The focus on standardized testing, which largely emphasizes scientific facts instead of engaging in the scientific process, pressures teachers to prepare students for fact-focused assessments. This can result in more teacher-directed instruction, which is in opposition to research that calls for providing time for students to experiment and participate in authentic scientific processes leading to discovery of both scientific facts and the scientific experience.

While the emphasis on scientific fact may lead to students’ knowledge of discrete information, it also results in a reduced understanding of scientific phenomena. For example, students may know Newton’s laws of motion, but they may not understand how or why the laws work.

What does all this have to do with today’s energy demands and the needs of a skilled workforce that can lead us into the future? It comes down to critical thinking. Students who can’t understand energy as a scientific concept will be less prepared to lead the technical and policy transformations required to power a growing world.

Already the industry is grappling with demands to produce more energy for an energy-hungry world while also looking for new and better ways to reduce the harmful emissions from that fuel. Policymakers and financiers are considering the tradeoffs of nuclear energy – emission-free but burdened with high costs, safety concerns and the lack of permanent storage for spent nuclear rods – and other potential ways to power modern life.

Even people who don’t work in the industry need to understand these concepts in order to make smart choices about the cars they drive, the appliances they purchase and, in states with deregulated energy markets, the electricity providers they choose to power their homes.

Providing students with inquiry-based experiences that foster critical thinking can help. That type of active learning engages students in questioning, planning and implementing investigations, analyzing data and generating conclusions using critical thinking . Scientific inquiry promotes opportunities for students to think and act like scientists, to relate evidence with explanations, formulate scientific arguments and defend scientific conclusions.

Critical thinking is crucial if we are to prepare students to be energy innovators of tomorrow. According to the late Richard Paul , research director of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, critical thinking involves considering multiple perspectives, scrutinizing implications, engaging in arguments to justify claims with evidence and reasoning, and re-examining findings or conclusions when new data emerges.

To nurture future energy innovators and develop critical thinking in science classrooms, Jonathan Osborne of Stanford University recommends that:

Students engage in questioning, analysis and critique to develop their science understanding and reasoning skills.
Space and time is provided to challenge or assess scientific knowledge.
Students critically compare evidence with predications and observations through argument to remain as objective as possible.
Teachers and peers reveal and respond to students’ preconceptions, and misconceptions, of scientific topics.

Students also should participate in scientific argumentation, a process that helps scientists cultivate better explanations of phenomena through debate, modified to develop consensus for scientific ideas based on evidence. One way to do this is by having students engage in Claims, Evidence, Reasoning and Rebuttal (CERR). Students make claims, which are statements that answer a scientific question or problem, with evidence and sufficient scientific data to support the claim. This is all tied with reasoning, which is the justification that connects the evidence with the claim. Reasoning must also show why the data is appropriate to support the claim by using scientific ideas and principles to support the connection between the data and the evidence. Additionally, students can include rebuttal. According to Katherine L. McNeill of Boston College, the rebuttal is when students propose an alternative claim and provide counterevidence and reasoning for why the initial claim is inappropriate or inaccurate. Rebuttal requires critical thinking to consider evidence from different perspectives and frames-of-mind in order to formulate the best claim that fits the evidence with reasoning.

This isn’t just educational theory, of interest to teachers and other educators. It has major implications for the future.

To develop the energy innovators of tomorrow, we must prepare students with increasingly sophisticated knowledge about the concept of energy and the energy industry. It is critical for students to be involved in authentic scientific experiences that foster the critical thinking skills and habits-of-mind that can create, analyze, scrutinize issues and propose solutions to the energy needs of our world.

UH Energy is the University of Houston’s hub for energy education, research and technology incubation, working to shape the energy future and forge new business approaches in the energy industry.

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December 17, 2009

STEM gets greener: Promoting critical thinking using renewable energy technology

by North Carolina State University

Can building model cars really help create the next generation of electric vehicle designers and engineers? Researchers at North Carolina State University think so. Through a recent grant, they will develop a curriculum that uses real-world applications of renewable energy technologies to teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics - known as STEM concepts.

The project, Green Research for Incorporating Data in the Classroom (GRIDc), uses renewable energy technologies as a learning tool to foster cognitive skill development and promote critical thinking and problem solving. This not only teaches new "green" sciences, but allows students to make practical informed decisions - such as comparing energy sources in electric vehicles .

"Students have a general knowledge of concepts such as wind and solar power, but they generally do not understand the pros and cons of different types of renewable energy systems," says Dr. Bill DeLuca, associate professor of technology education at NC State and principal investigator on the project. "Through this research, we are able to provide them data so they can understand and decide for themselves how well these systems work - and in what sorts of applications."

The $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant builds upon a previous $200,000 NSF grant that collected data from renewable energy technologies at the N.C. Solar Center to teach undergraduate courses. As a small part of the initial grant, the team held workshops for middle and high school students. The immense success of the workshops led to the development of STEP (Sustainable Transportation Electrification Program), a program partially funded by GRIDc, which includes two pilot electric vehicle competitions. Ten N.C. middle schools will hold contests to develop remote-controlled, battery-operated cars. Six N.C. high schools will also build the model cars, in addition to solar charging stations to operate the model vehicles.

"We know there is a big misconception among people about electric vehicles - like the differences between hybrid and electric vehicles. And, with President Obama's announcement of $2.4 billion for the electrification of transportation, we need a well-trained workforce and informed consumers - it's a paradigm shift for American society," says Dr. Pam Carpenter, a project coordinator at the N.C. Solar Center and co-principal investigator. "What we've found is that these students are actually able to go home and educate their parents about renewable energy."

Carpenter adds that GRIDc was one of 17 projects recently featured at the NSF technology showcase on Capitol Hill.

Working with DeLuca and Carpenter is a team of researchers at NC State including Dr. Len Annetta, associate professor of science education, Dr. Aaron Clark, associate professor of graphic communications, and Dr. Joseph DeCarolis, assistant professor of environmental engineering.

The initial grant funded the development of a monitoring system that provides students with energy and power readings from multiple renewable energy technologies at the Solar Center. These technologies include photovoltaics, wind turbines, solar thermal, and hydrogen fuel cell systems, which can be referenced against meteorological data such as wind speed, the sun's irradiance, ambient temperature, and module temperature. All of these variables can affect the performance of the photovoltaic system. The second phase of the grant, which launched in September, will expand data collection by adding sensors to wind turbines in North Carolina's Outer Banks. Additional data on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will come from Progress Energy and Advanced Energy, as well as from charging stations for electric vehicles.

"We're teaching students about renewable energy , but we're doing it in a way that complements the material they are already learning in the classroom - such as how to make graphs, look at trend analyses or work with different data types," DeLuca says. "So part of our job is working with the teachers to help them incorporate this information into their curriculum."

Provided by North Carolina State University

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Frequently Asked Questions About Renewables

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What is renewable energy?

As a category, renewable energy encompasses a broad range of energy technologies and fuels, ranging from photovoltaic solar cells to the burning of animal dung for fuel in many poor regions of the world. Major sources of renewable energy –– in the rough order of the amount of energy they contribute globally –– include hydroelectric power, wood used for heating, cooking, and electrical generation, bioenergy produced from agricultural crops and waste, wind energy, concentrated solar power generated with mirrors and steam turbines, photovoltaic solar cells, geothermal energy, and tidal energy.

Sources of “renewable” energy are finite but inexhaustible, meaning that there is a physical limit to how much energy might be produced from any given renewable energy technology, but the maximum utilization of that technology in the present does not diminish our ability to utilize it in the future. There is, for instance, a theoretical limit to the amount of solar radiation that might be harnessed for energy production today, but fully utilizing all of the solar radiation hitting the earth today does not diminish our ability to fully utilize that radiation tomorrow. Similarly, burning wood for fuel this year does not diminish the long term capacity to burn wood for fuel so long as the amount of wood harvested for fuel annually does not exceed the rate at which forests grow.

Is it possible to power the entire world with renewables?

That depends on what you mean. Until a few hundred years ago, we powered the entire world almost entirely with renewable forms of energy, mostly by burning wood for fuel, using animal fats like whale oil for lighting, and using animal labor for motive power. 1 But 100 years ago, the world had vastly fewer people, virtually all of whom were significantly poorer than the average person today. 2

So the question is whether we can power today’s world, or, more accurately, the world in 2040 or 2050, with renewable energy. The world in 2050, with a population exceeding 9 billion people and a greater proportion having achieved modern living standards, will almost certainly require at least twice as much energy as the world today, and more than 50 times more energy than was required to power the pre-industrial world when we last depended primarily on renewable energy sources. 3

Some analyses suggest that it is theoretically possible to power today’s world with renewable energy, but these analyses uniformly assume drastic reductions in global energy consumption. 4 Such projections also assume significant breakthroughs in the scalability and reliability of renewable energy technologies while typically failing to account for the costs or the amount of land needed to scale up to levels consistent with meeting expected future energy demand.

How much of the world’s energy comes from renewable sources today?

Currently, the world gets about 9 percent of its primary energy from renewables sources. That compares with close to 100 percent in 1800, about 60 percent in 1900, and 38 percent in 1950. Of today’s 9 percent, approximately 74 percent is produced by hydroelectric dams, 13 percent is produced by bioenergy, 10 percent is produced by wind turbines and 2 percent from solar power. Some nations get most of their electricity from renewables; of these, most get the vast majority of that energy from hydropower, notably Brazil, which gets 75 percent of its electricity from hydropower, Norway, which gets 96 percent, and Sweden and Switzerland, which each get about 50 percent. 5

Some advanced developed economies have met significant percentages of their electricity demand with solar and wind energy at certain times. Solar power, for instance, supplied over 50 percent of Germany’s electricity demand for a few hours during a sunny weekend in 2012. 8 But overall, solar provided only about 5 percent of Germany’s total electricity generation that year. All together, Germany gets a quarter of its electricity from renewables. But about half of that still comes from hydropower and biomass.

Some countries have reached considerable penetrations of wind energy. Denmark, for instance, gets 34 percent of its electricity from wind turbines. 9 But that is made possible because Denmark’s grid is interconnected with Sweden’s. When the wind isn’t blowing, Denmark is able to import large volumes of Swedish hydro and nuclear power, and when Denmark has more wind than it needs, it can export it to Sweden. As a percentage of generation on the total interconnected grid, Denmark’s wind represents a significantly lower percentage of total electrical generation.

Global Energy Consumption by Source, 2012:

Why has it proven so difficult to scale wind and solar energy?

Harnessing energy flows, such as the blowing wind and the shining sun, rather than utilizing energy stocks, such as fossil fuels or uranium, has the advantage of being an inexhaustible resource but the disadvantage of being extremely diffuse. Wind turbines must be deployed across vast landscapes to capture enough energy to meet the demands of a modern economy. Solar radiation is, theoretically, less diffuse. But current solar panel technologies don’t convert that energy to electricity very efficiently. The places in which solar radiation and wind are most abundant are also often far removed from the places where electricity is needed, requiring costly long distance transmission. 11

Wind and solar energy are also highly intermittent. As a result, solar and wind generation capacity must be heavily overbuilt, meaning that the actual energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines is substantially less than what is theoretically possible. Typically, a 100 MW wind farm will not have a capacity factor above 30 percent, meaning that on average, a wind farm with a total capacity of 100 MW will only produce about 30 MW of electricity. Capacity factors for solar panels are typically lower, in the range of 10 to 25 percent. 12 In northerly climates like Germany, the average capacity factor for solar panels is around 10 percent. 13 Hence, while Germany’s installed solar generation on rare occasions produces upwards of 50 percent of its total electricity, annually it only produces about 5 percent.

Taken together, these challenges present substantial obstacles to scaling solar and wind energy. The need to overbuild generation capacity substantially increases costs, as does the need to transmit electricity across very long distances. Lacking very large-scale and affordable energy storage technologies, wind and solar require the availability of substantial backup generation capacity, usually coal- or gas-fired generation that can be ramped up and down quickly in response to highly variable electricity production, further adding to the cost of integrating wind and solar into electrical grids as grid penetration rises. 14

What are the land impacts of renewables?

Present-day wind and solar technologies are very low-density, and generating large amounts of electricity from them comes with substantial land use implications. The recently completed Ivanpah concentrated solar facility, for instance, produces about the same amount of electricity as two small modular nuclear reactors but requires 92 times as much land as the nuclear plant. 15 The recently approved Hinkley nuclear plant in Great Britain will produce the same amount of electricity as a 250,000-acre wind farm on a 430-acre site. 16

As such, scaling wind and solar will bring significant environmental impacts for ecosystems, biodiversity, watersheds, and viewsheds. Even at relatively low levels of deployment, those impacts have generated significant local opposition to wind and solar development, often from environmental groups themselves, creating significant obstacles to large-scale expansion of wind and solar. 19

What are realistic expectations for wind and solar, given current technology?

Despite the challenges enumerated above, it is likely that wind and solar energy will play a significant role in our energy future. The cost of energy produced from solar panels and wind turbines has declined significantly. Continuing declines in the cost of photovoltaic solar panels may open up much larger markets for rooftop solar while similar improvements in the cost and performance of wind turbines may make large-scale on- and offshore wind farms economically viable in the coming decades. Taken together, these continuing developments may allow wind and solar energy to grow from present levels, which are negligible globally, to something on the order of 15 or 20 percent of global electricity generation over the next three or four decades. Few detailed energy technology assessments, however, expect wind and solar to account for a significantly larger share of global electricity, much less primary energy, without fundamental breakthroughs across a range of technologies, including much more efficient solar cells and utility scale energy storage technologies. 20

BP expects non-hydro renewables (including solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and other) to supply about 14 percent of global electricity in 2035. Beyond electricity, BP projects non-hydro renewables and bioenergy will supply about 7 percent of total primary energy, up from about 2 percent today. 21

Source: BP Statistical Review 2013

Can biofuels scale up significantly?

Source: Wise et al. 2009. 22

Next-generation technologies to create cellulosic fuels from agricultural waste, or from more land efficient crops such as switchgrass, are somewhat less land intensive, but would still require vast resources – water, land, and fertilizers – to produce fuels that would displace petroleum at significant scale. Very advanced technologies to produce fuels from algae or other microorganisms might allow for much more land efficient fuel production, but those technologies are still highly speculative.

How much more do renewables cost in comparison to other sources?

It depends on what you count. For some consumers in some places, the cost of electricity from rooftop solar photovoltaic panels is comparable to the retail cost of grid electricity. But that doesn’t reflect the full costs. In the United States, the federal investment tax credit subsidizes about one-third of the cost of buying and installing solar panels. 23 Other subsidies at the state level frequently augment that subsidy. Net metering policies in many states provide even more subsidies, requiring utilities to buy back power from solar producers at several times the effective rate at which they could purchase power on the wholesale market. 24

The US Energy Information Agency attempts to make “apples-to-apples” comparisons of the cost of different electricity generation technologies by estimating the “levelized cost of energy” (LCOE). LCOE is an estimate of the unit costs of electricity generated by different technologies, typically expressed in dollars per megawatt-hour ($/MWh) after public subsidies are accounted for.

Below are DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA)’s most recent LCOE figures:

LCOE, however, does not capture the full costs of different energy technologies. All energy technologies impose indirect costs of one form or another in addition to the direct costs calculated through LCOE. Due to its capital-intensive nature, for instance, nuclear power faces substantial upfront financing costs. 26 The burning of fossil fuels impose substantial externalized costs on society, in the form of public health costs and climate change, along with the often substantial costs of procuring and transporting fuels. Renewable energy technologies create unique “system costs” in addition to the direct costs of generating power. 27

broadly defined, include the costs of backup generation, storage, and overbuilt renewables capacity; balancing, voltage control, and curtailment costs of intermittent power; and the cost of transmitting power over long distances from the point of generation to load centers.

The costs associated with overbuilding, firming, and backing up intermittent renewables are modest at low penetrations. But at higher penetrations they become substantial. Germany is today scaling back its renewable subsidies and mandates in part because costs associated with backing up its growing renewable energy capacity have grown substantially. 29

Source: Clean Air Task Force; LBNL; NREL .

While intermittent renewables carry costs that LCOE calculations fail to account for, they also bring unique benefits that can also be undervalued. A benefit of solar power, for instance, is that in sunny, warm areas, solar panels can produce at their highest capacity when daily electricity demand peaks. This can make the value of solar power high enough to justify its higher relative costs. However, these benefits decline as renewables penetration increases. Above 10 to 20 percent of electricity generation, the value of solar power to a grid declines substantially. Wind power sees less decline in its value to the grid as penetrations rise, but that is because its value to the grid compared to solar power is lower to start with, as wind generation fluctuations are less usefully or predictably correlated with demand load. 30

In some locales, most notably Northern Europe, peak load occurs in colder months, when sunlight is exceptionally scarce, further lowering the capacity value of technologies like solar power. 32

These issues might be resolved through the development of utility-scale energy storage technologies. However, those technologies do not yet, for the most part, exist and will also entail not insignificant additional costs to electrical systems.

Isn’t the cost of solar coming down rapidly?

As deployment of solar panels has risen over several decades, the cost of manufacturing solar panel modules has declined consistently. Between 2007 and 2012, solar panel costs declined precipitously. Recent rates of rapid cost declines are not expected to continue by most industry analysts, however. The recent price declines have been driven by over-production as much as real reductions in actual production costs. Heavy solar subsidies in developed countries, like the United States and Germany, combined with heavy production subsidies in China and other developing countries created a global glut of solar manufacturing capacity and solar module inventories. Chinese firms, in particular, have been accused of dumping excess production capacity at below the cost of production in key export markets such as the United States and Europe. Trade actions taken by the United States Trade Commission and the European Community have alleged that Chinese dumping has depressed the price of solar modules by as much as 75 percent.

Actions to scale back solar subsidies in many parts of the world have triggered a consolidation within the industry, with module inventories declining and manufacturing facilities closing. As this has occurred, module prices have begun to rise. Over the longer term, module costs will likely revert to long-term cost trends, with prices coming down more slowly. Declining module costs, however, will have a less pronounced effect on solar system costs going forward then they have in the past. This is because module costs no longer represent the lion’s share of total solar costs.

While module costs have fallen, other costs associated with solar panels have not. Because solar technology in general, and rooftop solar most of all, tends to be more distributed than conventional power plants like natural gas or nuclear plants, solar systems typically have a much higher ratio of installation, permitting, interconnection, and other non-hardware costs in relation to the cost of producing the actual hardware and fuel. While “soft costs” of this nature can also see returns to scale, they don’t spill over from one economy to another in the same way that hardware costs do. Solar modules are a globally traded commodity, where cost reductions in, for instance, Chinese manufacturing, benefit solar costs everywhere. The same is not the case with regard to skilled labor and services. Labor-intensive economic services tend to get more, not less, expensive over the long term.

But isn’t the fact that renewables are more distributed an advantage over conventional energy technologies?

At lower levels of generation, distributed generation sited close to demand load can provide substantial benefits in the form of avoided costs of transmission and capacity. However, as illustrated above, these marginal benefits decline as penetration increases. 33

Any future in which renewables constitute a much larger share of our energy mix is likely to see more centralization not less. All the major scenarios modeling large penetrations of renewable electricity foresee the vast majority of renewable energy, including wind and solar, coming from large power plants, requiring massive, new long-distance transmission infrastructure and not home and commercial installations.

Would renewables be more economically competitive without subsidies for fossil fuels?

While fossil fuels worldwide enjoy more absolute subsidization than renewable energy, fossil fuels also supply vastly greater quantities of energy than do renewables. Calculated as subsidy per unit of energy generated, fossil fuels receive vastly lower subsidies than renewables like wind and solar. Moreover, these subsidies represent a very small portion of their per-unit cost of energy. 34 While there may be good reason to remove subsidies for fossil energy as a matter of policy, particularly in developed economies where universal access to modern energy has long been a reality, there is little evidence to suggest that removing fossil energy subsidies would substantially reduce fossil fuel dependence or increase renewable energy deployment. A large share of global subsidies for fossil fuels are actually in the developing world, where governments often subsidize access to electricity and modern heating, cooking, and transportation fuels for poor communities. 35 In these cases, removing subsidies would be unlikely to result in poor communities in developing economies turning to renewable energy sources, which remain substantially more expensive. Removing these subsidies, however, would, in the near term, almost certainly reduce access to modern energy services in many developing economies. 36, 37

Can emerging economies “leapfrog” from wood and dung to distributed renewables?

modern energy services to poor communities throughout the world must account for how access to those services might most cost-effectively be extended. One recent study, by the Center for Global Development, found that tens of millions more sub-Saharan Africans can achieve electricity access using centralized, gas-fired generation than current off-grid renewable technologies. 38

Strategies to extend energy access through off-grid renewable energy systems must also account for a broader development context. If off-grid and micro-grid solutions to provide access to modern energy services are to be successful, they must 1) facilitate “productive uses” of energy, or energy consumption that spur economic development; and 2) function in a way where connection to the central grid is achievable at some point in the future. 39 Installing off-grid generation technologies without considering these conditions risks partitioning the process of expanding energy access from the broader processes of urbanization, industrialization, democratization, and economic growth. 40

1. Grubler, Arnulf. 2008. "Energy transitions." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment. http://user.iiasa.ac.at/~gruebler/Data/EoE_Data.html .

2. Bolt, J. and J. L. van Zanden (2013). The First Update of the Maddison Project; Re-Estimating Growth Before 1820. Maddison Project Working Paper 4. http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/data.htm .

3. IIASA Population Projections. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/modelsData/PopulationProjections/POP.en.html .

4. Loftus, Peter J.; Cohen, Armond M.; Long, Jane C.S.; Jenkins, Jesse D. In Press. “Global Decarbonization Scenarios: A Critical Review.” WIRES Climate Change.

5. BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013. http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html .

6. Trembath, Alex; Nordhaus, Ted; Shellenberger, Michael; Luke, Max. 2013. Coal Killer: How Natural Gas Fuels the Clean Energy Revolution . Breakthrough Institute. http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/coal-killer .

7. Grubler, Arnulf. 2008. "Energy transitions." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment. http://user.iiasa.ac.at/~gruebler/Data/EoE_Data.html .

8. Steadman, Ian. 2012. “Germany sets solar record, meets half of electricity demand.” Wired Magazine . http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/28/germany-sets-solar-power-record .

9. BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013. http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html .

10. BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013. http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html .

20. Nicholson, Megan; Stepp, Matthew. “Challenging the Clean Energy Deployment Consensus.” Center for Clean Energy Innovation. October 2013. http://energyinnovation.us/portfolio-items/challenging-the-clean-energy-deployment-consensus/ .

21. BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013. http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html .

24. Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE). http://www.dsireusa.org/ .

26. Nordhaus, Ted; Lovering, Jessica; Shellenberger, Michael. “How to Make Nuclear Cheap: Safety, Readiness, Modularity, and Efficiency.” Breakthrough Institute. July 2013. http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/how-to-make-nuclear-cheap .

27. Electric Power Research Institute. “The Integrated Grid: Realizing the Full Value of Central and Distributed Energy Resources.” 2014. http://www.eenews.net/assets/2014/02/10/document_cw_02.pdf .

28. April Lee et al., “Interactions, Complementarities and Tensions at the Nexus of Natural Gas and Renewable Energy,” The Electricity Journal, 25 (December 2012).

29. Nicola, Stefan. “German Lawmakers Vote to Reduce Renewable-Energy Subsidies.” Bloomberg . June 27, 2014. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-27/german-lawmakers-back-new-clean-energy-law-to-reduce-subsidies.html .

30. Mills, Andrew and Wiser, Ryan. 2012. “Changes in the Economic Value of Variable Generation at High Penetration Levels: A Pilot Case Study of California.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL-5445E). http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-5445e.pdf .

31. Mills, Andrew and Wiser, Ryan. 2012. “Changes in the Economic Value of Variable Generation at High Penetration Levels: A Pilot Case Study of California.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL-5445E). http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-5445e.pdf .

32. Burger, Bruno. 2014. “Electricity production from solar and wind in Germany in 2013.” Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-files-englisch/news/electricity-production-from-solar-and-wind-in-germany-in-2013.pdf .

35. Plumer, Brad. “IMF: Want to fight climate change? Get rid of $1.9 trillion in energy subsidies.” The Washington Post . March 27, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/27/imf-want-to-fight-climate-change-get-rid-of-1-9-trillion-in-energy-subsidies/ .

36. Jenkins, Jesse. “Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies Will Help, But Only Innovation Can Make Clean Energy Cheap.” Breakthrough Institute. November 10, 2010. http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/phasing_out_fossil_fuel_subsid .

37. Jesse Jenkins, Mark Muro, Ted Nordhaus, Michael Shellenberger, Letha Tawney, and Alex Trembath, “Beyond Boom & Bust: Putting Clean Tech on a Path to Subsidy Independence,” Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, and World Resources Institute, April 2012.

38. Moss, Todd and Ben Leo. “Nature Gas vs Renewables for OPIC: What’s the Tradeoff?” Center for Global Development. January 30, 2014. http://www.cgdev.org/blog/natural-gas-vs-renewables-opic-whats-tradeoff .

39. Trembath, Alex. “The Low-Energy Club: Sierra Club Report Calls for Universal Electricity Access at 0.15 Percent California Levels.” Breakthrough Institute. June 30, 2014. http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/the-low-energy-club .

40. Caine, Mark et al. “Our High-Energy Planet.” Breakthrough Institute. April 2014. http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/our-high-energy-planet .

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Renewable Energy Definition | Resource - Solar Panels under Sun image

Hydropower: Water will always be in dams or rivers to turn turbines and create electricity.
Nuclear: Considered renewable thanks to new technologies that will keep power plants running.
Wind power: Breezes turn wind turbines to generate electricity.
Solar power: The sun will die many billions of years from now, so we can heat water and create electricity from its power until that happens.
Geothermal energy: Replenishable geothermal heat from beneath the Earth’s crust heats homes and drives electricity generation turbines.
Tidal: In its infancy, tidal power is available as long as the Earth spins and the seas move.
Biomass : O rganic matter, or waste, that comes from plants or animals. This includes everything from sawdust at paper mills to biogas from cow sewage or landfills. We burn it to create electricity, which is called bioenergy .
Biofuel : Also known as bioenergy, biofuel is a ny fuel derived from biomass. We burn the solid form to create electricity, and the liquid form can power vehicles, replacing diesel and gasoline.
Biodiesel : A renewable diesel replacement made from recycled cooking oil, soybean oil, and animal fats.

What Does Renewable Energy Include?

As we’ve seen, renewable energy comes from natural processes that continually replenish, such as solar, geothermal, wind, and hydropower.

Another term often bandied about is alternative energy — this means an alternative to fossil fuels. Alternative energy is not necessarily renewable energy. Ethanol is an example of alternative energy; it is often blended with gasoline for fuel in vehicles. However, it is not a renewable energy but an alternative energy.

What’s the Best Source of Renewable Energy?

Renewable Energy Alternative energy - dam energy image

The best renewable energy source is debatable because there are pros and cons to each type. However, they can all have a positive impact and create jobs and investment. Let’s look at the primary renewable energy sources.

Wind is available globally and offers lots of untapped potential generation. Once the wind blows, it is a clean and efficient way to generate electricity. But a lack of sufficient breeze renders wind turbines impotent, so you can’t always count on a strong breeze to keep the turbines turning.

The environmental cost comes in the material to build the vast windmills, potential unsightliness in wilderness areas, noise pollution, and its effect on local wildlife. Offshore wind is becoming much more popular, taking wind farms away from human populations. Available globally.

Solar works well in sunny climates, giving consistent power on clear days and providing some power on cloudy days. They don’t work at night, but batteries can store excess energy for later use. Their approximate 30-year lifetime means that up to 78 million tonnes of raw material from photovoltaic (PV) solar panels will require recycling by 2050. Solar panel waste and recycling could be a potential hazardous waste issue in the future.

Geothermal

Geothermal draws hot water trapped underground to the Earth’s surface. In general, it is a very clean and reliable energy source. Still, it does bring visual pollution with power plants that may also release bad smells, noise, and sometimes causes soil subsidence. This type of renewable energy is only available in areas with geothermal waters.

Hydropower

Hydrower is similar to geothermal in that it’s a very clean and reliable energy source. Issues arise from the environmental damage caused by installing hydroelectric stations, changing river courses. In many cases, governments flood basins and dam them to create a reliable water flow.

Flooding can result in displaced populations and considerable changes to the local environment, with temperature changes and wildlife issues. The Three Gorges Dam in China is a striking example of this. Hydropower depends on sufficient rainfall, too.

Finally, nuclear energy is a renewable energy source. It’s relatively reliable, secure, and forms a part of many national grids. The problem with nuclear energy is the large amounts of toxic and hazardous waste it creates that needs treating and safe storage. While thankfully rare, nuclear accidents such as the 2011 F ukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan cause almost immeasurable damage to wildlife and humans over many centuries.

There is a delicate balance between reliability, construction costs, pollution, and potential environmental damage with every renewable energy type. As such, determining the best renewable energy is a very subjective topic.

What Is the Most Common Form of Renewable Energy?

Hydropower is the most common form of renewable energy — it accounted for 60% of all global renewable energy production in 2019, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) .

Most renewable energy generates electricity, so let’s look at global electricity production in the previous year, 2018 :

Coal: 38%
Natural gas: 23%
Hydropower: 16.2%
Nuclear: 10.1%
Wind power: 4.8%
Oil: 2.9%
Biomass and waste: 2.4%
Solar: 2.1%
Geothermal energy, tidal, others: 0.5%

The effects of the Covid-19 crisis on renewable energy technologies and energy demands remain to be seen .

Also, the United States has formally rejoined the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. The effects of that decision could also change renewable energy use.

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How Efficient Is Renewable Energy?

Once built and in place, a mix of renewable energy sources is usually a very efficient way to create electricity. Each form is different with varying efficiency levels:

Wind: 35-50%, with 59% maximum (100% efficiency would mean no wind would flow past the turbine).
Solar panels: Convert 17-19% of solar thermal energy received. Engineers are working on getting that to 30%.
Geothermal: Worldwide average is 12% energy efficiency , with some plants recording up to 21% energy efficiency.
Hydropower: Converts around 90% of energy into electricity.
Nuclear: Power plants typically achieve 33-45% efficiency .

Hydropower is the most efficient renewable energy, based solely on how much energy it converts into electricity.

What Are the Ways to Get Renewable Energy?

Renewable Energy Conservation | Windmill produced

It’s possible to s upport renewable energy efforts in your home or business. One way to do this is asking your energy supplier to switch you to a renewable or ”green” electric plan ; this usually means that the supplier purchases renewable energy credits to offset your electricity use .

If you want to do more, you could install solar panels, a small wind turbine, or even construct a micro-hydropower plant to provide electricity to your building(s). There are various heat pumps (air-to-air, water, or geothermal) that can provide heat and warm water, too. Larger industrial properties sometimes build a local biomass generator.

How Do You Conserve Nonrenewable Energy?

The three Rs are an excellent way to remember how to conserve the nonrenewable energy sources on Earth: R educe, R euse, R ecycle.

Reduce entails saving energy however you can, and treating it like the precious resource that it is. There are many ways to conserve energy, from insulating your home and turning off lights to cycling to work or walking to your local market. These are just some of the ways you can reduce the amount of fossil fuel-based energy use. When you factor in increased renewable energy production along with this energy conservation, it becomes clear that we have the power to keep more finite resources in the ground.

Reuse means giving already manufactured items another life instead of throwing them away. Reuse could mean donating clothes to charity or buying clothes from secondhand shops or vintage stores rather than always buying new. Advertisers implore us to buy new appliances to replace old or broken ones but getting them fixed is a form of reusing and much better for the environment. This suggestion extends from cars to electrical items to bicycles and more — you can conserve energy by not constantly replacing repairable items with new products.

Recycling gives unwanted items and materials new lives rather than tossing them away. The most common recycling method is household waste: glass, paper, plastics, and more. It could mean composting organic waste, buying new items made from recycled materials, or giving older items a new purpose, adapting them to a fresh role (this is sometimes called upcycling). Cell phones require many rare minerals to function. They are a classic example of why we need to recycle before we end up with no more materials to make them.

Suppose we combine all these actions with greater renewable energy adoption. In that case, we will burn fewer fossil fuels, conserving those nonrenewable energy sources for a later date.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy?

The pros and cons of renewable energy are varied and change as technology advances in both renewable and nonrenewable industries.

Pros of renewable energy:

Never-ending clean and sustainable energy
Minimal pollution once working
Natural, abundant, fewer greenhouse emissions
Low maintenance
Helps combat climate change
Can promote cheaper electricity prices
Can be constructed close to high demand areas

Cons of renewable energy:

Pollution and energy used to create infrastructure
Noise and sight pollution
Potential environmental impact on wildlife
Many sectors need to improve efficiency
Large capital investment required
Intermittent and unreliable supply in some sectors, depending on weather conditions
Not enough capacity to cover current demand

What are the Limitations of Renewable Energy?

Pros and Cons of Renewable Energy - image of pond with steam

Renewable energy is not bad, but it does have has limitations and impacts the environment . Wind turbines don’t turn when there is no breeze. Solar panels don’t work at night and function poorly in bad weather, and hydropower needs sufficient rainfall and water to power its turbines.

Industrial-scale renewable energy sites require a lot of capital investment and raw materials to construct, albeit this point is moot because so do nonrenewable power plants. Renewables cannot meet current energy demands, and their intermittent supply is a downside.

People living near wind turbines often complain of noise pollution, and geothermal plants can smell bad because of the gases released when extracting geothermal water. Wildlife often suffers, too: birds die hitting wind turbine blades, solar panels occupy fields where insects once buzzed around, and river life alters when hydropower arrives.

How Do You Support or Switch to Renewable Energy?

C ontact your energy supplier and ask a bout a green energy plan that supports renewable energy . Most suppliers will have a plan that offsets your elec tricity use with Renewable Energy Certificate s (REC) . A certificate is issued when a renewable energy resource delivers a megawatt-hour of electricity to the grid. A megawatt-hour is enough to power an average home in the United States for 1.2 months.

By purchasing a plan that offsets your electricity use with RECs , you show support for renewable energy production by buying clean energy, even if it’s not available in your region. You’re not using that exact megawatt-hour but asking for your money to go to a clean energy provider that puts it into the grid somewhere, whether in your region or elsewhere.

Other ideas include getting a solar panel fitted to your home, hydroelectric station, or perhaps a small wind turbine, depending on what’s best for your area. Some communities get together to create community solar-powered grids, small hydro schemes, and more.

Ask at your town hall, organize a webinar with neighbors, and get active. You’ll be joining 820 million people in 1,480 jurisdictions across 28 countries that have declared a “climate emergency” and are doing something about it by investing in renewable energy.

Why Switch to Renewable Energy?

By switching to renewable energy, you are helping to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You’re also helping conserve nonrenewable energy for possible future needs. Your sustainable, renewable energy can help contribute to a cleaner planet, bringing environmental and health benefits to every living being across the globe.

The Cost of Renewable Energy

Although renewable energy feels like it is “free” because no one owns the sun or the tides or the wind, there are inherent costs in the manufacture of renewable energy. Materials for building, minerals for photovoltaic cells, and constructing dams are just a few sizable upfront costs.

How Does Renewable Energy Save Money?

In 2018, fossil fuels received $400 billion in subsidies across the globe. That’s a lot of money that could be invested elsewhere. That same year, there was a $296 billion investment in renewables; changing subsidies for investment in renewables would bring more sustainable energy to the grid and could help save money long term.

Installing solar panels, a heat pump, or a small wind turbine at a home or business has an initial cost but results in lower energy bills. There may also be tax rebates and grants to help with the price, so be sure to check o u t DSIRE .

Eventually, the investment can pay itself off through lower bills. As awareness grows about how renewable energy works, more people will become energy conscious and start to conserve more energy. Some energy pricing plans include selling excess electricity produced back into the grid, which could earn the renewable installation owner money.

Is Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Nonrenewable Energy?

The latest renewable energy projects to generate power are now providing cheaper electricity than fossil fuels.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in 2019, electricity from utility-scale solar cost just under seven cents (0.068 cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Onshore wind was slightly over five cents per kWh, and sometimes as low as four cents. Electricity produced by fossil fuels generally ran from five cents to 17 cents per kWh.

Which Renewable Energy Source Is the Cheapest?

The cheapest renewable energy source at present is onshore wind power. According to 2019 figures from IRENA, it was just over five cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to seven cents per kilowatt-hour for solar P.V. panels.

By the end of 2021, solar is expected to become even cheaper, with auction prices in Abu Dhabi, Peru, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Chile expected to be as low as three cents per kilowatt-hour .

How to Make Renewable Energy Cheaper?

Renewable energy production is becoming cheaper as technology pushes the sector forward, improving efficiency and bringing down costs.

New large-scale solar and wind installations are continually being built, offering great power-producing possibilities. In 2023, the world’s largest offshore wind farm will start to create energy. Dogger Bank in the U.K. will be home to the world’s most powerful wind turbine and generate 3.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 4.5 million homes a year.

Why Use Renewable Energy and Renewable Resources

Renewable energy is making leaps and bounds in terms of efficiency, stability, and affordability. Global energy consumption continues unabated, so the challenge is to meet that demand.

It makes good sense to recycle the byproducts from existing power plants and industrial processes — biomass and biofuels — but it’s just scratching the surface. Fundamental change demands more decisive action than the present reliance on fossil fuels. Protecting the Earth from climate change means leaving nonrenewable resources in the ground as well as developing cleaner, renewable energies.

We can store finite, natural resources away for the future when technology may allow their clean use. Harnessing more renewable energy now will lead to lower energy bills and a cleaner planet.

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Published: 06 May 2016

Thinking through participation in renewable energy decisions

David Bidwell 1

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Scholars and practitioners have advocated for greater public participation in decisions about renewable energy technologies. Nonetheless, many questions remain regarding the role of the public and the scope, purpose and openness of these decision processes.

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