Renewable Energy
Renewable power is a hot topic in the world today. This is important for our planet because the energy we are using is harming us. Renewable power can be solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biofuel as a beginning.
These are clean fuels that comes from natural sources. They are becoming more and more popular, and their popularity will continue to grow. These fuels are considered the future for our planet.
The important thing about these fuels is that they can be used again and again. They are considered renewable energy solutions because of this. There is a lot to learn about these different energies.
This article will help you to learn more about this subject. It will explain a little about what they are. You can also do more research to get the information you are seeking.
Information About Renewable Energy
1. Fast Adoption in Europe – The United Nations has wanted to see an increase in renewable resources since 1997. The goal for the entire Union was for renewable energy to be 12% of all power used. Countries who are a part of the UN were expected to create action plans about how they were going to increase their renewable resource usage.
There are many member countries that have increased their usage. Germany has raised their net usage to 33.9% in 2016. Italy raised theirs to 16.2% of total electricity in the country. Portugal raised theirs to an amazing 78%.
2. China is Leader in Wind Energy – China has built two windmills per day in the year 2014: https://www.reuters.com/article/china-windpower/china-starts-building-2nd-biggest-offshore-wind-farm-idUSL3N13T2UA20151204. The United States was a distant second with wind power. Because of its long coastline, China has unlimited wind power at their disposal. Their generation capacity was at 149 GW and generated at 241 TWh.
There are issues with China’s wind power because it doesn’t always reach some of the areas that need it most. It is mostly in the industrial areas of the country, leaving the rural areas without it. Even with all their issues, they are still number one in wind power.
3. Solar Power Getting to the Masses – The global demand for solar power is expected to double by 2023. It should be the world’s main source of electricity by 2050. It is predicted to supply 27% of global power by that year.
For many years, Europe was the only area to use solar power, but this has changed. Other countries have begun to utilize this energy source. Some of these countries include Canada, Israel, India, Japan, and Australia. There are many other countries on this list.
4. Oil Billionaires are Selling Their Assets – There are many billionaires who are selling their assets and using profits to buy renewable power resources. These include Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Aloys Wobben, and more. There are some of these billionaires that won’t do business in the United States because, as some put it, “it will be wasted on golf courses.”
5. Coal Use Dropped by 21% – Coal is being used as much anymore and its use has decreased by 21% between the years 2007 and 2014. See more about that here. This has been due to the world’s new dependence on wind and solar power. The use of coal was climbing by 1.9% before 2007.
Coal use in the US decreased by 10% by the year 2007. Even China, who was a world leader in coal usage, decreased their usage by 1.6%. This led to the total usage in the world decreasing so much.
6. Solar Energy Industry Employs More Than the Oil Industry – The jobs in the solar resource industry are expanding twelve times as fast as the US economy. The solar industry employees more people than all the other sources combined. There were about 375 thousand people that were working in solar power in 2016, and it has only increased since then.
7. Wind Turbines Provide More Power than Non-Renewable Resources – Wind turbines work the opposite of a household fan. A household fan will use electricity to produce wind. A wind turbine will use wind to create electricity.
They come in all types of shapes and sizes, some as large as a football field and as high as a twenty-story building. One turbine can supply over fourteen hundred homes with electricity each day. This equates to 230 million cups of coffee or powering a computer for over two thousand years.
8. Funding from the Top – The World Bank is providing millions of dollars in funding to countries around the world to add renewable resources. They do this because there are billions of people who go without electricity if they don’t have access to renewable resources. This is especially true in India.
In India, 1.06 billion people who have no access to electricity. There are another three billion people who still use coal, wood, and charcoal for heating and cooking. The World Bank provided them with 100 million dollars.
9. The Biggest Corporations are Using Clean Energy – The biggest goal that the world is trying to attain is to get the biggest corporations in the world to use clean resources. This has worked to some extent and many large corporations are working towards this goal. This is an important task that needs to be met.
Some of the biggest companies that are doing this are Walmart, Google, and Apple. Walmart is the largest producer of clean electricity. Google invested a billion dollars directly in wind farms. Apple has powered its data centers with renewable resources.
Conclusion
It is important for the world to begin using renewable resources to protect the planet. Clean energy does less harm to the world than fuels that are based on fossil fuels. If we want the planet to survive, we must move to renewable energy.
There are many countries that are already far along the way of switching to these cleaner energy resources. Wind and solar energy seem to be the biggest sources of these resources. Hydropower, geothermal, and biofuels are coming in close to these.
