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renewable and sustainable

Page history last edited by Andrew Alder 2 years, 3 months ago

a page on energy issues 

 

Two terms that you often hear in discussions about the environment are renewable and sustainable. In fact they are often used interchangeably.

 

But they are significantly different and to confuse them is misleading and dangerous.

 


 

 

Renewable energy

Renewable_energy is defined by Wikipedia as useful energy that is collected from renewable resources, and renewable_resource as natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of time in a human time scale.

 

Read that a few times with a cynical attitude and the phrase weasel words might come to mind. 

 

Renewable energy includes:

  • Hydro
  • Solar
  • Wind

and that's about it. Most people are surprised that the list is so short.

 

We could make it a bit longer by including whale oil. It is no surprise that nobody does.

 

Renewable was the darling of the early environmental movement. It became less so when it was realised how much environmental damage hydro does. You're not supposed to ask about whale oil.

 

But that leaves wind and solar, so renewable energy is a very popular term among those who promote those energy sources to the exclusion of all others, for whatever reasons.

 

We all have agendas. And some of those agendas will keep both the phrase renewable energy and its confusion with sustainable energy popular.

 

 

Sustainable energy

Sustainable energy is energy produced and used in such a way that it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" again according to Wikipedia, and they give a good reference. 

 

Sustainable energy includes

  • Solar
  • Wind
  • Nuclear
  • Tidal
  • Geothermal

and others probably.

 

It's all good stuff in theory. But the third of those is the sticking point.

 

And just because an energy source is sustainable in theory doesn't make all its implementations good in practice. Tidal can have enormous ecological consequences, probably even worse than hydro. Run-of-the -river hydro is good in theory but so far still needs large dams in practice. Solar farms aren't good if they just let big coal reinvent itself as big solar. And as the Soviets were publicly told in 1954 and found out in 1986, the particular reactor design they used at Chernobyl power station was not a good idea at all.

 

 

Some consequences and conclusions

 

  • Most people in the world want to use more electricity than they do currently, whether to power electric cars and trains or their very first refrigerator or computer, or other reasons but those would be more than enough.

 

  • Most industries can be more sustainable if they employ more recycling, more recyclable materials, and more environmentally friendly practices and materials. And all of these generally require more energy, and the best way of providing this extra energy is generally by sustainable electricity.

 

  • Most wars are fought over resources, and particularly over water and energy. And wars are terrible for the environment. That's why Greenpeace is such a great idea.

 

So sustainable, affordable electricity is the key to all environmental issues.

 

Renewable energy, on the other hand, is an old-fashioned and obsolete environmental objective. That's not to say that all forms of renewable energy are evil. Far from it. They are mostly very good stuff, but that is because they are sustainable, not because they are renewable.

 

And that difference is very important.

 

Renewable energy is still a highly effective political slogan. But that is all, and very dangerous as a result. It is popular among those who either don't know the facts or don't want to know them, or both, and even among those who don't care.

 

And it will remain so for the foreseeable future. You have been warned.

 

See also

 

http://renewabull.pbworks.com/  a site dedicated to this particular issue

 

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