TOPIC 'Environment' on Jul 28, 2009 (CEST)
Increasing Demand for Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is certainly an important issue in our world today due to an increasing demand for energy and a dwindling supply of our traditional fossil fuel supply. Any scientist can see the handwriting on the wall stating that we need to find a new, cleaner supply of energy to power our world as we move forward. Pollution levels in some big cities are at an all time high and if we are going to save our environment then we need some clean energy solutions.
This is where the renewable energy sector comes in. Right now the industry is exploring clean energy sources and experimenting with solutions to see how scalable they truly are. For example, if you can outfit a private home with solar panels and reduce their energy demand by 80 percent, that is great. But, the question is, can you do this for everyone? Is it cost effective to do so? Can the solution be scaled out to work for every home? What about other countries? Can this clean energy solution be replicated in countries like China and India, where demand is much greater than it is in the U.S.? These are the kinds of questions that are facing technology experts in the field of renewable energy right now.
Another hot section of renewable energy is with wind power. Huge turbines can be used to harness free energy from the environment. But wind energy points to a problem with almost all renewable energy sources: they are not consistent. The wind is not always blowing. And of course with solar power, the sun is not always shining. These issues can be minimized and perhaps eliminated however with the advancement of capacitor technology. This is a fancy way of saying that we are developing much better batteries that can store this renewable energy for later use.
What is interesting about renewable energy is the economics of it all. This is where the development of new energy sources will be either won or lost, simply based on the dollars and the investing community. In a down economy there is going to be less of a push to invest in these types of resources that are designed to benefit us more in the future. In most cases there is more money to be made investing in existing energy sources where the demand is already known to exist. In other words, clean renewable energy represents a financial risk that most people are not willing to take right now. We know for sure that there is demand for fossil fuels even though they are not as clean.
What might change this eventually is government measures and grants that can push innovation and motivate companies to research these clean energy sources. If there is no financial incentive to do so in a free market, then the government will eventually have to step in and create that incentive. Doing so might be the key to a clean and healthy future for all of us.
Jason Grace
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany
