Wind Energy

Solar Power

Natural Energy Source

Critique on renewable energy

Over the last few years renewable energy has been touted as the solution to all of the world's energy problems. While there is a chance that this could be the case it is important to realize that renewable energy may not be the great option that people think that it is.

The biggest critique that has been levelled against renewable energy is that most of the options that exist are not particularly efficient. The result is that in order to use these sources of energy it is going to require a lot more resources than we currently use. This creates a few problems the biggest being the cost factor. However the bigger problem is that renewable energy may not be as renewable nor as environmentally friendly as people seem to think that it is.

In general it has just been accepted that renewable energy is better for the environment than fossil fuels or other options but this may not actually be true. Things like solar power and wind power will have an impact on the weather for example if they are used in large enough quantities to meet our energy needs. The weather is largely caused by the sun heating the earths surface which then heats the atmosphere and allows the air to circulate as wind. Large scale wind or solar farms would prevent this from happening and change the weather.

Other forms of renewable energy have similar problems. For example the use of biofuels creates the problem of over farming and the soil erosion that results from that. Of course the bigger problem is that if we start using our food sources as a fuel it does raise the question of what are we going to eat? Most of the problems that renewable energy has in this regard come back to the lack of efficiency of most sources.

The main problem that is hard to get around when it comes to renewable energy is that most of it is so inefficient as to be impractical. They work fine on a small scale but come nowhere close to actually meeting our energy needs. For example supplementing your electricity with a few solar panels on your roof is one thing, meeting the world's energy needs with solar power is another. To do this would require most of the earths surface to be covered in solar panels. The same is true of wind power, most of the land would have to be covered with windmills. The same problems exist for biofuels, hydroelectric power and pretty much any other source of alternative energy.

Because of the inefficiency of most renewable energy sources there is a pretty good chance that they will be limited in their use. They may be a good supplement to other sources but the idea that they will one day replace them entirely is very unlikely.