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Abstract
This paper extensively concentrates on renewable energy technologies, explaining in
details three important examples: wind power, solar power and hydropower some of the fastest
growing sectors of the renewable energy industry. The renewable energy technologies are
identified as an effective solution to reduce some environmental problems, such as air pollution,
acid precipitation, ozone depletion, climate change and global warming that are intrinsically
related with current energy use and supply, strongly based on fossil resources. Several aspects
related with renewable sources, environmental impacts and energy utilization are examined,
exposing positive and negative points of wind power, solar power and hydropower
1. Introduction
The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached 400 parts per
million, the highest in three million years (New Energy Finance, 2013). Growing evidence of
environmental degradation is due to a combination of several factors, such as the increase of world
pollution, energy consumption and industrial activity. These factors show the deep relation
between environmental and energy issues. However, problems with energy supply and use are
intrinsically related not only to global warming, but also to such environmental concerns as air
pollution, acid precipitation, ozone depletion, forest destruction and emission of radioactive
substances.
Energy will be a determining factor in whether the world can surpass the evident
environmental and energy crisis and make a transition to a sustainable global economy. The
renewable energy technologies are the key to a clean future and a stance based on the growth of
energy produced by renewable sources, such as wind, sun and water, is being adopted. These
solutions are discussed in more details in this paper, presenting positive and negative aspects of
the following renewable energy technologies: wind power, solar power and hydropower.
2. Renewable energy technologies
Renewable energy sources technologies produce marketable energy by converting natural
phenomena into useful energy forms. They are continually replenished and represent a massive
energy potential which dwarfs that of equivalent fossil resources. However, renewable energy
sources are generally diffused and not fully accessible, some are intermittent and all have distinct
regional variability. Such aspects of their nature gives rise to difficult, but solvable challenges
inherent in development and use of renewable energy resources.
Renewable sources of energy vary widely in their cost-effectiveness and in their
availability across the world. Although water, wind and other renewables may appear free, their
cost comes in collection, harnessing, and transporting the energy. According to a research
developed by Boomerang New Energy Finance in 2012, hydropower, solar power and wind power
represent an important part of the global renewable energy market. In the following figure, it is
possible to visualize with more details the investments performed in the several sectors of
renewable energy.
Figure 1: Asset finance of renewable energy assets by sector, 2012, $BN
of differences in cloud cover and latitude, and also varies with the seasons. In the summer, longer
daylight hours and a higher sun angle provide more solar power, compared to the winter when the
sun is up for fewer hours and at a lower position in the sky.
2.3 Hydropower
Hydropower makes up seven percent of total U.S. electric generating capacity and is the
United States largest source of renewable electricity, avoiding over 200 million metric tons of
carbon emissions each year (U.S. Department of Energy, 2014). Because it has no pollutant air
emission, hydropower helps to reduce the air pollution, acid precipitation and ozone depletion.
However, the place where a hydroelectric power plant will be built has to be chosen carefully. If
a large amount of vegetation is growing along the riverbed when a dam is built, it can decay in the
lake that is created, causing the buildup and release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Hydropower is a renewable energy source that uses the Earths water cycle to generate
electricity. Water evaporates from the Earth's surface, forms clouds, precipitates back to earth,
and flows toward the ocean. The movement of water as it flows downstream creates kinetic energy
that can be converted into electricity. A hydroelectric power plant converts this energy into
electricity by forcing water, often held at a dam, through a hydraulic turbine that is connected to a
generator. The water exits the turbine and is returned to a stream or riverbed below the dam.
Hydropower is mostly dependent upon precipitation and elevation changes; high
precipitation levels and large elevation changes are necessary to generate significant quantities of
electricity. In order to produce hydropower, it is necessary to integrate river flow, an uneven land
and an amount of water in a given period of time. Therefore, an area such as the mountainous
Pacific Northwest has more productive hydropower plants than an area such as the Gulf Coast,
which might have large amounts of precipitation but is comparatively flat.
3. Conclusion
The renewable energy technology is an interesting topic to study and one that is growing
in importance as energy and environmental concerns become more pronounced. The high
concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the climate change, the global warming and
the air pollution are just some reflections of the current environmental degradation that affects all
the world.
Renewable energy is an effective solution to surpass current environmental problems. It
offers a secure energy supply with less negative impacts in the nature. Even with the variability
and relative high cost of installation, wind power, solar power and hydropower are gaining
increasingly space in the energy market. Renewable technologies are the key to a clean future,
representing an excellent alternative to the current energy supply strongly based on fossil
resources.
References
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