Renewable Energy

Topic Overview

Renewable energy is energy that is generated from natural processes that are continuously replenished. This includes sunlight, geothermal heat, wind, tides, water, and various forms of biomass. This energy cannot be exhausted and is constantly renewed.

Types of renewable energy sources:

• Wind – Wind energy, or wind power, is created using a wind turbine, it is used to generate mechanical power or electricity. The wind blows the blades of the turbine, which are attached to a rotor. The rotor then spins a generator to create electricity (Renewable Energy: The Clean Facts by Shinn Lora, June 2018).

• Solar – Solar, or photovoltaic (PV), cells are made from silicon or other materials that transform sunlight directly into electricity. Distributed solar systems generate electricity locally for homes and businesses, either through rooftop panels or community projects that power entire neighbourhoods. Solar farms can generate power for thousands of homes, using mirrors to concentrate sunlight across acres of solar cells. Solar energy systems don’t produce air pollutants or greenhouse gases, and as long as they are responsibly sited, most solar panels have few environmental impacts (Renewable Energy: The Clean Facts by Shinn Lora, June 2018).

• Hydropower and Ocean resources (Tidal Energy) – Hydropower relies on the water typically fast-moving water in a large river or rapidly descending water from a high point and converts the force of that water into electricity by spinning a generator’s turbine blades.Tidal and wave energy is still in a developmental phase, but the ocean will always be ruled by the moon’s gravity, which makes harnessing its power an attractive option. Some tidal energy approaches may harm wildlife, such as tidal barrages, which work much like dams and are located in an ocean bay or lagoon. Like tidal power, wave power relies on dam-like structures or ocean floor anchored devices on or just below the water’s surface (Renewable Energy: The Clean Facts by Shinn Lora, June 2018).

• Geothermal – is heat that comes from within the sub-surface of the earth. Thermal energy is generated and stored on the Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature of matter (Renewable Energy: The Clean Facts by Shinn Lora, June 2018).

• Solid biomass, Biogas, and Liquid biofuels – is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and includes crops, waste wood, and trees. When biomass is burned, the chemical energy is released as heat and can generate electricity with a steam turbine (Renewable Energy: The Clean Facts by Shinn Lora, June 2018).

Innovators and Ideas

“Indigenous Led Clean-Energy Projects Could Power Reconciliation” was published on April 23, 2019, by Heather Castleden. According to Castleden around 250 remote Indigenous communities, in general, are not attached to Canada’s electricity grid (Castleden, 2019). Due to the lack of resources, they must rely on local diesel-powered generators. Diesel is an extremely expensive and unreliable source of energy. It also impacts climate change heavily because it is an unclean source of fossil fuel. The federal government released a plan to help 15 remote Indigenous communities reduce diesel dependency (Castleden, 2019). Seeing that a total of 250 communities are in dire need of help, only planning to reduce 15 doesn’t make much of a difference overall. The government has a history of wanting to help but failing to collaborate with community leaders to evaluate the needs and wants of the community. When Indigenous leaders are involved it helps prove the integrity of the project because Indigenous leaders are natural leaders, decision-makers, keepers of knowledge, culture, language, protectors of the lands within their community or organization.

Organizational Profile

There are renewable energy resources located across the world, trying to create an energy-efficient and sustainable country for those who reside there. We chose to focus on the International Renewable Energy Agency as this organization does not focus on solely one country or community, but works abroad creating ways to promote and implement using renewable energy. The mission of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is to support countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future and promote renewable energy (International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) n.d.). The International Renewable Energy Agency serves as the principal platform for international cooperation, a center of excellence, and a repository of policy, technology, resource, and financial knowledge on renewable energy. The organization promotes the widespread adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy, in the pursuit of sustainable development, energy access, security, and low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. IRENA runs programs such as Renewables in Agriculture; which promotes benefits and opportunities for renewable energy solutions in agriculture, Sustainable Energy Job Group; which highlights knowledge gaps regarding sustainable energy, and Towards 100% RE; which explores the roles of actors, sectors, and scenarios in energy transitions (International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) n.d. Project Facilitation).

Conclusion

The conclusion is that clean or renewable energy is a wonderful drive towards technology, since finding methods to benefit nature in every manner without harming it is a fresh challenge for the next technical generations. Renewable energy is a natural and environmentally beneficial means for humans to obtain the energy they require to carry out their everyday activities, such as wind or solar energy for the automobile, water heater, or moving machinery, among other things.

Renewable, green, clean, natural, or sustainable energy is the energy of the future, and it should be advocated by everybody for long-term growth. After learning about the numerous benefits that renewable energies may provide, it is not unexpected that they are critical to our society’s future. As a result, they are receiving a lot of encouragement and support from a lot of countries that all have the same goal: to take care of the earth and lessen the greenhouse effect.

For all of these reasons, renewable energies are believed to be the future, since they not only benefit the environment but also provide an effective method of optimizing resources for energy production and growth.