Renewable Energy Sources - Literature review Example

Renewable Energy Sources Of Renewable Energy Sources Oil-producing countries in 1973 decided to hike the crude oil prices from two dollars to ten dollars per barrel. This resulted to economic and sensation chaos in both developed and non-developed countries who did not posses oil reserves. This led to the realization that, it was no longer acceptable to use oil extravagantly or indiscriminately. Eventually, efforts were directed towards energy conservation programs and alternative energy resources development. That’s how renewable energy came into existence up to today (Qurash & Hussain, 2010). In addition to that, in 1990s, there existed energy policy explosion changes around the globe. Inflamed by environmental, security, economic and social concerns, regulations on energy have been in a flux. Majority of the changes are exhibiting impact on renewable energy. This cuts across from policies designed explicitly to promote energy sources that are renewable and some policies targeted to influence indirectly renewable energy barriers and incentives (Frass-Ehrfeld, 2009). Renewable energy is provided by the environment. Thus, practitioners should relocate from buildings closed environments to the exterior. This is not a big deal as our natural environment provides the fulfillment and the joy of renewable energy. The renewable energy sources are resupplied continuously by the solar or through tapping resources that are inexhaustible including geothermal power, wind and water among others (“NREL.U.S. Department of Energy”, 1997). The utilization of renewable energy modern technologies has contributed significantly to pollution reduction. Due to increased consumer demand, renewable energy technology has expanded significantly. For example, renewable energy is always scattered in the environment making it damn expensive and difficult to contain. According to Twidell and Weir (2006), renewable energy wide spread application would act in favor of communities that are dispersed in comparison to concentrated ones. In that case, powering of electricity grids will be based on embedded generation that is small-scaled. Therefore, power flows will move intermittently in divergent directions corresponding to local demand and local generation. As renewable energy is spreading at a faster speed, modern technology and science has a great influence on it. For instance, they have ensured that there is an improvement to the existing technologies. However, it is quite difficult to exactly predict the long-term impacts of the changes. As a matter of fact, renewable energy sustainability nature should result to significant socio-economic viability as compared to nuclear power and fossil fuels. Greater renewable energy diversity supplies are expected in relation to social and economic diversity characteristics in the long-run (Twidell & Weir, 2006). Innovation in renewable energy technologies deal with problems that is societal. Furthermore, it deals with issues of sustainable development. The need for fossil fuel substitution by renewable energy is a widely accepted phenomenon. On the contrary, the technology diffusion is tedious and extremely slow. Various questions arise when it comes to matters of implementing renewable energy technology. For example, which part of the technology needs government assistance, or is the government able to implement and stimulate the needed actions. Thus, it is important to illustrate the political impact on the renewable technology. National leaders in the whole continent are forcing their executives and planners to enhance their economic growth. As a result of this notion, it has become extremely difficult for scientist to go against this advocacy. As a result of global warming, economic sustainability cannot be sustained via the utilization of fossil fuels or other non-renewable energies. In effect, renewable energy sources are aggressively utilized in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries (Abbasi & Abbasi, 2010). The shifting of countries to utilization of renewable sources of energy has significantly reduced global warming and waste production rates. Taking German and United state of America as a case study, they have increased renewable energy public financing to promote cost effective and abundant energy sources. European commission has set a limit of 20% electricity share from energy sources that are renewable by 2020. The main purpose of this target is to promote international agreements compliance on emission of greenhouse gases and regional development and employment opportunities. Comparable pronouncements are found within the US energy policy recent political discourse. The United States of America president Obama has highlighted the importance of investing in greener technologies. Investing in these technologies would trigger economic growth through job creation and environmental stewardship promotion. The American act on Recovery and Re-investment has set aside sixty billion dollars ($60Billion) to promote investments in clean energy. United States of America views investment in cleaner production as a win-win solution as it aids the country in addressing global warming challenges. In addition to that, it develops a long-term foundation for prosperity and recovery (Frondel, 2009). The intervention level by the government in markets of renewable energy is founded on factors such as, regulations, laws that are relevant, federal, state and local programs and ordinances. Renewable energy sources have significantly impacted on the manufacturing industries in terms of product quality, cost of production and customer base improvement. Manufacturing industries who intend to reduce their carbon emissions face various challenges such as product quality standards, initiating innovation, meeting customers’ standards among others. The utilization of renewable technology has various advantages to these industries. For instance, it has increased their technical benefits through improved efficiency and productivity. Through new processes and product introduction, the manufacturing industries have been able to improve their product quality. In addition to that, the cost of production has greatly reduced. Materials are used efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, re-work and waste have decreased unlike in the use of non-renewable technologies such as fossil fuels such as coal. In the current world, customers are veered towards consuming products that are environmental friendly. Thus, the utilization of cleaner energies by manufacturing industries will aid in the production of goods and services that meets customers’ satisfaction and demand. After renewable energy technology invention, its use was delayed for some time for various reasons. The major challenges experienced were such as the construction of the infrastructures to facilitate the utilization of the energy sources. These were such as electricity infrastructure. For instance, in the United Kingdom, currently, eight (8) gigawatts of generated capacity that is renewable have been on retention in the planning system. In addition to that, meeting the target in terms of energy supply was not easy. It is indeed necessary for designed policy instruments to meet the target and also shield clients from facing inefficient and excessive costs. This is in context to the ever increasing prices of energy and fuel poverty. Important lessons can be acknowledged from renewable energy support mechanism. The support mechanism is referred to Renewables Obligation (RO). It paves way for subsidies to decline as their exist competition in terms of technologies. Thus, the development of new policy instruments should focus on robustness for purposes of overcoming any obstacles (Great Britain, 2008). On the other hand, the target can be reached but it is quite challenging. It is necessary for both the European Union and United Kingdom to acquire technical and investment innovation unprecedented levels in a very short period. This involves all supply chain areas from market generation, distribution and transmission networks and market responsible for retailing. All these correspond to market pricing signals that are likely to occur from networks of renewable energy. In spite of having structurally viable legal systems of renewable energy and incentives from the government, the necessary renewable energy development and implementation is extremely limited. The main reason is that, governments support strongly the utilization of fossil fuels. This makes industries in renewable energy sector to take a position that is inferior in the market segment. In conclusion, there exist indirect impacts of utilizing alternative sources of energy. Indirect effects of alternative energies are often independent in relations to energy supply. Thus, the implementation of a cheap, clean and unlimited energy source cannot halt environmental related problems. It has always been assumed that, protection of environment does not provide any financial costs. On the contrary, from various studies conducted, it is proved that environmental protection has got many financial benefits. For instance, the wide utilization of systems of renewable energy sources comes with economic benefits. The benefits are such as innovation investments and creation of employment opportunities. In addition to that, renewable energy technologies protect a countries economy from economic and political risks. The risks are characterized by the over-dependence on fuel and energy technologies that are limited (Kammen et al., 2004). For purposes of implementing renewable energy technologies, governments should work towards reforming the existing energy regimes. The utilization of fossil fuels to generate electricity is a major course of global warming. Nations economy and global economies needs to be reordered for purposes of internalizing costs as a result of energy externalities. Even though, use of fossil fuels cannot be eliminated completely, countries should strive to limit their use of non-renewable sources and focus on sources that are renewable. Therefore, government incentives and environmental laws should be strong enough to enhance such a transition. Insufficient and in adequate incentives would result to limited success in terms of consumption and production of renewable energy sources. Thus, governments and other organizations should ensure there is a legal system that is strong to support renewable energy implementation and a market energy that is competitive. References Abbasi, T., &Abbasi, S. A. (2010).Renewable Energy Sources: Their Impact on Global Warming and Pollution. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Frass-Ehrfeld, C. (2009). Renewable energy sources: a chance to combat climate change. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International. Frondel, M. (2009). Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energy. Journal of German Experience, 1-38. Great Britain. (2008). The EU’s target for renewable energy: 20% by 2020. Great Britain: House of Lords European Union Committee. Kammen, D.M., Kapadia, K., & Fripp, M. (2004). Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate? Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley. NREL.U.S. Department of Energy. (1997). Dollars from sense. Retrieved 19 March 2012, from U.S. Department of Energ website: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy97/20505.pdf Quarashi, M.M., & Hussain., T. (2010). Renewable energy technologies for developing countries. Journal of Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1-81. Twidell, J., & Weir, A. D. (2006).Renewable energy resources. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. Read More