Renewable energy investment still insufficient

Renewable energy investment has been constantly decreasing since reaching record $318 billion in 2011. Bloomberg reports that in 2013 there was 12% decrease compared to previous year at the $254 billion. If this trend continues, this won't be enough to halt climate change and prevent the global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius.

The billionaire bankers gathered in the United Nations at the conference hosted by Ceres where they discussed the possible ways to increase renewable energy investment in years to come. They have concluded that renewable energy investment must double by 2020 and double again to $1 trillion by 2030 if world is to successfully fend of the threat of two degrees temperature increase.

The numbers don't lie but they might look bleaker than they really are, for instance solar energy technologies have been rapidly dropping in prices meaning that more solar energy is now being generated with fewer dollars invested. Also, these numbers do not include majority of energy-efficiency measures, fuel-efficiency gains or expanded public transportation.

However, the investment into clean energy sources will still need to rise rapidly in order to avoid worst climate change scenario.

This conference concluded that the best way to increase investment is to enable easier financing. Among their recommendations of how to achieve easy financing were: increasing the percentage of pension funds to at least five percent of their portfolios, increase scrutiny of companies that are major carbon emitters, and focus on  bonds and asset-backed securities (the introduction of so called green bonds).

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Renewables vs. nuclear energy - What is better for climate change?

The currently dominant fossil fuels are thought by many scientists to be the main culprits behind the climate change and global warming. If world really wants to tackle climate change it needs to move away from fossil fuels and focus more on other energy sources such as renewable energy and nuclear energy. This article will discuss which of these two is the better solution for climate change-renewable energy or nuclear?

Renewable energy certainly seems like the better solution than building more nuclear power plants, and this is not just because of the recent Fukushima accident. The accidents such as Fukushima and Chernobyl are rare but when they occur they are usually accompanied by massive environmental damage which is usually long-lasting, and difficult to clean up.

Nuclear power plants are extremely expensive to be built because they need to comply with number of different safety measures and also because they are technologically complex. Even choosing site for nuclear power station is very difficult because communities usually oppose having plant nearbye. Renewable energy technologies have been constantly dropping in prices, and it's only matter of time before wind and solar become cost-competitive with fossil fuels, in fact if you calculate the total damage in environmental, social and health costs due to climate change and pollution then renewable energy is already better in terms of costs than fossil fuels.

The technologies used for nuclear power generation could be also used for the development of nuclear weaponry, and we must also not discount the possibility of terrorist attack, just imagine what could happen if some radical terrorist organization would take over the nuclear power plant.

Clean energy race is well on, and all countries of the world have been seriously considering their renewable energy options, in order to choose the one best suited for them. In many countries future nuclear power development has been pretty much abandoned and the golden age of nuclear power generation seems to be well behind us.

In the last 10-15 years, from 2000 upwards global renewable energy capacity has more than doubled. In 2012, in United States, renewable energy accounted for 56% of new electricity generation.

It would be wrong to say that we should abandon nuclear energy straight away because nuclear energy accounts to significant share of electricity generation in many countries of the world. The solution is to focus primarily on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind when discussing our energy future. Nuclear power had a pretty good run, and once current nuclear power plants end their lifetime we should consider replacing them with some of various renewable energy solutions.

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Switch to renewable energy is good for economy too

Many people still look at renewable energy as purely environmentally friendly option that can offset greenhouse gas emissions and thus tackle climate change issue, while on the other hand consider renewable energy to have significantly higher costs when compared to fossil fuels.

The brand new study by Dr. Laurie Johnson, chief economist in the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, argues that switch to renewable energy would not be only good for environment, but would also make lot of sense economically.

The factors that are often ignored when calculating the total costs include pollution generated in the coal-fired power plants, which in United States accounts for 40 percent of the nation's carbon footprint. Burning coal is also responsible for countless pricey consequences, for instance increased rates of heart disease, respiratory illnesses, and premature death, all of which take their toll in total costs equation.

Climate change is said to be a direct consequence of our over-dependence on fossil fuels and Johnson estimates that $100 billion in U.S. tax dollars were spent in 2012 due to extreme weather events caused by climate change.

When taking all these factors into consideration the United States would actually save money by replacing coal power plants with renewable energy, especially on the long run.

The cleaner options like wind, solar, geothermal are therefore not only good for our environment but also for our economy, or in other words burning "cheap coal" used to generate our electricity isn't really that cheap, in fact it's quite expensive.

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What is the connection between renewable energy and climate change?

Many environmentalists agree that renewable energy is the best answer to climate change problem. Why is that? It is because bigger renewable energy usage decreases our dependence on fossil fuels, and the fewer fossil fuels we use (burn) means that fewer greenhouse gases end up in the atmosphere. The ever-increasing levels of greenhouse gases (most notably carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere are the main reason for ongoing climate change phenomenon.

Renewable energy sources like wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy are all environmentally friendly energy sources that do not emit harmful greenhouse gas emissions like this is the case with fossil fuel fired power plants.  The world, however, still heavily depends on "dirty" fossil fuels, even despite their extremely negative environmental impact. Why do we continue using something that is having such a devastating effect to our environment?

The answer is because we need energy. The global hunger for energy is huge, and gets bigger each year because more people need more energy, and the world population is constantly rising. The global economy was (and still is) built on using fossil fuels and this is the reason why oil, coal, and natural gas are often referred to as "traditional energy sources".

Tradition, of course, comes after many years of usage, and this is the missing part that renewable energy lacks. Renewable energy sector has only recently started developing and renewable energy technologies need to mature in order for renewables to become competitive with fossil fuels in terms of costs and efficiency. 

Greenhouse gases coming from fossil fuel fired power plants are major contributor to climate change.

The certain age of maturity that renewable energy will have to achieve before becoming fully competitive with fossil fuels is something that cannot be avoided. From the current point of view it is difficult to say how much time will renewable energy need to mature but we are talking about at least couple of decades, unless of course science comes up with some breakthrough discoveries that would make renewable energy technologies cheaper and lot more efficient.

Further renewable energy development heavily relies on science, and scientific researches. Scientific research and different science projects require large funds, and it is good to see that the world is ready to invest large amounts of money to be used for further development of renewable energy technologies.

So everything looks to be going well, well almost everything, because we still do not know the answer to one very important question, namely will climate change give us enough time to fully develop renewable energy technologies. The current climate change models and scientific predictions are everything but optimistic meaning that renewable energy revolution could be coming too late to stop the climate change.

Therefore, renewable energy development, despite the very positive growth in the last decade or so still needs to speed up things. After all climate change is a ticking bomb that could go off any time and lot sooner than we think it will.

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Why isn't Australia renewable energy superpower?

Australia is yet to seriously enter global clean energy race, even despite having abundant renewable energy resources at its disposal. The total renewable energy potential is more than enough to satisfy country’s entire energy needs but only a negligible percentage of it is being actually used.

In 2011, renewable energy accounted for little over 5% of total energy consumption in Australia with biomass being the most important renewable energy source in the country.  Having abundant renewable energy resources without properly utilizing it means very little, and Australia is the perfect example of it.

The main reason why Australia isn't focusing more on renewable energy development is coal. Australia has huge coal reserves, and coal, despite being the dirtiest fuel of them all, is still the cheapest energy option for Australia. The heavy dependence on coal has turned Australia into one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters.

Coal still rules in Australia in terms of energy consumption and electricity generation.

This reliance on coal will hopefully decrease in years to come, and one of the best ways for this to happen is no doubt harnessing more solar energy. Why? Because Australia has the best solar insolation values of all continents, therefore solar energy is really the most logical renewable energy option for Australia, especially if solar panel prices continue to decline rapidly as they have been in the last few years.

Solar energy sector is yet to achieve its full expansion in Australia, even despite the supportive clean energy policy and favorable feed-in-tariffs. Therefore it still remains to be seen whether Australia will be able to achieve its clean energy goal, which includes 20% of total electricity coming from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The general public certainly wants more renewable energy because climate change has already started showing its scary face in Australia, mostly in form of severe droughts.

The public support is there but Australian government needs to do lot more in order to turn Australia into renewable energy superpower. The remaining factors are stronger clean energy policy and bigger renewable energy funds. The combination of these two factors is the only way to attract more investment in Australia.

The Australia needs to realize that more renewable energy does not only mean environmental benefits but it also leads to economic growth, especially in form of new green jobs.

According to the 2008 study by Greenpeace Australia could increase share of renewables in energy consumption to 40% by 2020, and in the process completely phase out existing power plants, without the danger of job losses. This is certainly something to think about.

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Renewable energy development in Canada

Given the size of Canada's territory it is really no surprise that Canada has abundant renewable energy sources at its disposal, meaning it has significant edge over other countries in terms of renewable energy development. However, just having plenty of resources to choose from is not enough, and Canada still has plenty of work ahead before being able to competitively enter clean energy race.

The most important renewable energy source in Canada is hydropower. Canada is today the second largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world, trailing only China. In fact, Canada generates approximately 60% of its electricity from hydropower. Quebec leads the way with 59 hydroelectric dams that have a combined capacity of 34,118 megawatts, almost half of the Canadian total. The good news about hydropower in Canada is also the fact that Canada still has plenty hydro resources untapped. This means that hydropower sector should look forward to a very bright future in Canada.

Canada still has plenty of untapped hydropower potential.

Canada is experiencing rapid growth in wind power capacity. In 2011, Canada installed more than 1000 MW of new wind power capacity. At the end of 2011, wind power capacity in Canada grew to a total of 5,265 megawatts. The supportive government policy was one of the main reasons for the rapid growth of wind energy in Canada. Quebec and Ontario lead the way in wind energy development. Offshore wind energy also represents a very interesting option.

Solar energy isn't exactly a priority for Canadian renewable energy sector. This is no surprise since Canada isn’t exactly blessed with the enormous amount of sunlight throughout the year. However, there are some parts of the Canada that have excellent solar energy resources at their disposal such as southern Ontario that was estimated to have potential to produce approximately 100 gigawatts of solar power. Solar energy is currently the most popular renewable energy source in the world, and Canada is also making plenty of it with many Canadian companies already involved into making solar modules, controls, specialized water pumps, high efficiency refrigerators and solar lighting systems.

Canada has enormous potential for the biomass production, given the massive forests across much of the Canada. Even despite the excellent biomass potential, Canada isn't making much of its wood resources, even despite the fact that the demand for bioproducts is rapidly growing on global level.

The harnessing of geothermal energy in Canada is still primarily related to geothermal heating. The latest estimates say that there are more than 30,000 geothermal heating systems installed across the country. British Columbia, Yukon and Alberta have significant geothermal energy resources at their disposal but the country still hasn’t done much to boost its domestic geothermal production.

Canada also has good tidal and wave power potential, though these technologies are yet to be given real chance on global scale, so they are not exactly being much talked about in Canada.

To conclude, Canada needs to combine its wealth in renewable energy resources with the proper investment and the right clean energy policy. If Canada manages to achieve this it could soon become one of the most prominent countries in global clean energy map.

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Why is renewable energy important for the future of our society?

There are several important reasons that make renewable energy extremely important for the future of our society. Renewable energy still has a long way to go in order to replace fossil fuels and become primary source of energy consumption but things have been lately definitely moving in the right direction. But let us focus here about the future impact of renewable energy on our society.

Positive environmental impact is certainly one of the most important reasons. Fossil fuels when burn, create harmful greenhouse gas emissions and our planet is already feeling the impact of climate change. By using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels we would significantly decrease the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and this would have positive environmental impact for our entire planet.

Renewable energy is not all about environment as it can also give strong boost to our economy in form of new jobs. The number of people employed within the renewable energy industry is rapidly growing, giving many countries an excellent option to boost their economies in this post-recession period.

Renewable energy can improve our energy security by reducing the need for foreign oil import. The global oil market has been characterized by extremely volatile prices and our dependence on oil continues to grow. By switching to renewable energy and using more domestic renewable energy sources instead of importing foreign oil we would drastically improve our energy security and energy independence, not to mention the fact that our money would stay inside our borders instead going to OPEC countries.

Renewable energy offers plenty of options to choose from such as solar and wind.

Renewable energy offers variety of different options to choose from. What this means is that countries can choose between sun, wind, biomass, geothermal energy, water resources, etc, depending on the potential of each of these sources.  

The prominent position in global politics. The global clean energy race is very important and winners in this race will experience many political as well as economic benefits in years to come.

Abundant potential of many renewable energy resources. Our sun for instance has almost unlimited potential. Wind, geothermal, biomass – all of these sources have excellent potential to satisfy our energy needs.

Renewable energy can help in fight against poverty by playing part in electrification of many rural areas in developing world. In these rural areas renewable energy is much cheaper energy option to satisfy energy needs as compared to traditional energy solutions.

Renewable energy can also help improve political ties between countries by sharing technological know-how. Some large renewable energy projects could even be joined works of two or more different countries.

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Can renewable energy halt global warming and climate change?

Renewable energy is often being mentioned as one of the best solutions to halt global warming and climate change. This is because renewable energy sources such as solar and wind do not create harmful greenhouse gas (mostly carbon dioxide) emissions that contribute to climate change like burning of the fossil fuels does.

Currently dominant fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) when burn create harmful greenhouse gas emissions that cause large quantities of CO2 to go into atmosphere, increasing Earth's greenhouse effect and warming our planet in the process.

Why does world continue to use fossil fuels if they do such a tremendous damage to our environment, and our planet in general?

First of all, our society needs energy because our "normal way of life" cannot function without constant energy supply. Fossil fuel technologies have long history of use and our entire industry was built on them. This has led to a creation of very powerful fossil fuel lobbies that have great influence over politics, and tend to get major political decisions going their way.

On the other hand, renewable energy technologies have just started developing and they are still some time off from reaching the necessary maturity level that would enable them to achieve parity with fossil fuels in terms of costs and efficiency. Many people are still not ready to pay higher energy bills regardless of whether this helps our environment or not, which means that renewable energy must become cheaper prior to replacing fossil fuels as dominant fuels.

Since renewable energy has abundant potential and variety of different sources from which we can harvest clean energy, it is really only a matter of time before renewable energy replaces fossil fuels and becomes main energy source in the world. On the other hand, fossil fuels are finite energy sources meaning that they will eventually become exhausted and therefore cannot guarantee our future energy security.

The only question that remains to be answered is whether climate change will leave us enough time to make transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Judging by the latest scientific reports we seem to be running out of time really fast.

The rapid development of different renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines looks to be one of the few remaining options that can really prove the difference in our fight against the climate change. Whether our society will utilize this option in time, however, still remains to be seen.

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How much does U.S. consume fossil fuels and renewables?

United States is still the world's largest energy consumer. Despite the growing popularity of renewable energy sources such as solar power, wind power and biofuels, fossil fuels are still the dominant energy sources in United States and satisfy most of the nation's energy demand.

The recent data shows that fossil fuels currently account for 84% of nation's energy demand. Oil still accounts for approximately 40% of nations' energy demand, while coal is the major source of US electricity accounting for around 49% of total US generated electricity. The third member of fossil fuel triad, natural gas, currently supplies around 23% of US energy demand, with many energy experts expecting natural gas share to grow in years to come, especially after the ever-growing shale gas extraction.

These numbers clearly show that fossil fuels are still the most important energy sources in United States, and that renewable energy industry still has plenty work ahead in order to challenge the dominance of fossil fuels.

Hydropower and biomass are currently the most important renewable energy sources in United States, wind is also looking quite good, while solar energy sector is fast developing.

Hydropower currently satisfies around 7% and biomass around 4% of nation's energy demand. In the period from 2000-2010 wind power was the fastest growing renewable energy source in United States, and nation has even set a goal of achieving 20% of electricity coming from wind by 2020. If U.S. really wants to achieve this goal it will have to put a lot more emphasis to offshore wind energy.

The much talked about solar power is more making headlines in media instead of actually having significant impact in nation's energy use. Many Americans believe in solar power as the best possible renewable energy option but despite the huge popularity solar power currently satisfies less than one percent of nation's energy demand. This is mostly because solar panels are still relatively expensive, and somewhat inefficient compared to efficiency of fossil fuels.

US is global leader in installed geothermal capacity but this doesn't mean much when it comes to energy use because geothermal energy currently meets less than 1% of nation's energy needs, which is way too little given the geothermal potential of some US states such as California and Nevada.

Given the current situation it is logical to expect that fossil fuels will continue their dominance when it comes to nation's energy use simply because renewable energy needs time to develop desired efficiency and costs. Without reaching competitiveness in terms of efficiency and costs renewable energy cannot seriously challenge fossil fuels, even with the strong federal and local support.

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