Renewable Energy has many parts, and some of them can do jobs that others cannot do. It is important to work together to bring the best renewable Energy to the world that we can hope to achieve.
This diagram represents a short overview over different elements of a renewable energy network, and what the different parts can do, and what not.
For example, Hydropower can be both an energy source (flowing water through a turbine) but also a means of energy storage (by keeping the water behind the dam). Renewable Biomass can be stored well, but can also be turned into a renewable source of energy. Batteries can store energy well, but cannot produce energy.
Thoughts, comments, likes :-)
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Hydro requires massive destruction of nature. We can do way better than hydro. I live in BC where all my power is hydro. I, and the endangered, keystone species of our local ecosystem would be very happy to see every dam demolished on favour of other actually planet friendly methods.
Is biomass renewable, though? I mean it takes a lot of time for a tree to grow. A lot.
Poplars and willows are fairly fast growing. Plus there are perennial grass feedstocks
That certainly helps, but still, at scale is hardly sustainable.
It is renewable in the sense that given infinite time, you can use it to grow infinite energy (for the nitpickers: assuming an eternal sun).
It is not infinite though and the amount of power you can extract from it is limited but that’s true for every renewable sources: you have a limited amount of places where you can put dams, where you can put windmills or even solar panels.
What is important is that it is not power generation that consumes a scarce good (as fossil power does) but that it is increases in power generation that consumes it, in a reversible way.
If you look at it like that, fossil is renewable as well. Just a tiny bit slower, but still, given enough time … :)
Not really IIRC. Modern bacteria are more efficient at breaking down organic materials and forests buried today won’t make oil anymore.
That’s interesting. You have an url handy for now details? Even if this wasn’t the case, fossil generation isn’t real feasible for us anyway.
Sorry I don’t have it handy, just read it, probably on /r/askscience a while ago. A quick search indicate that maybe this is not as true as I thought. That seems to be the case mostly for coal and for some forms of oil, but not all of it.
Hey, no worries. It’s interesting how nature changes.