Green Energy and It’s cost
The world is quenching the last drip of oil reservoirs. Countries are heading towards the so called Green Economy. Movements are being made to prevent excessive use of fossil burning. All these things happening because we say we care about the world that we live in, we care about our environment. But is it not because the resources are dripping away and the only alternative is the renewable energy resources. But the latter also seems to find it-self with-in the realm of controversy. With the rise in the awareness of the production cost of these all renewable energy sources, we have been asking if it is really the alternative. Tests are being carried out on the third world countries to observe its sustainability; subsidized policies are being carried out by the government to encourage the use of the alternative sources. But are we ready for it. Are underdeveloped countries capable of maintaining such a high cost operation program? These are some few hard-talk questions that must be dealt with accuracy.
To get these questions answered, we need to have a comprehensive survey on the areas where renewable or clean energy are being deployed. We need to measure the total cost of operation and the energy used to create those clean energies. I am not into saying that we mustn’t employ the clean energy sources. But instead, I am trying to suggest that we need to look at not only the environment health but also economical health, before we fund on new types of energy sources. This ensures that the countries get their compensation. We don’t want countries running into debt to sustain the sustainable energy programs.
Lets look at some of the data on Renewable Energy Sources and their capability as a energy provider.
All the above graphs are related to different clean energy sources: Sun, Wind and Geothermal. At a glance these seems very promising as a future sources of the energy. But if we look closely, we find that the data being predicted after 2004 is highly optimistic and also unrealistic. How are we justifying for such large increase in the capability. Is it the new advanced technology that we are relying on? Or is that going to happen with changes in the policies?
Let’s not be optimistic, neither pessimistic. The way I see it is all these energy sources requires huge amount of capital to be invested on. Similar to Hydro-power plant, these require such huge project. You may argue that solar really doesn’t require much of a set-up, but the industrial cost on the making of the thin-film, silicon technology and its efficiency is a question, we have always asked to judge its sustainability.
What we need a well researched reports on the new kinds of energy regarding its impact not only on the environment, but also the economy. We need to see that new technology do not create any disparities between the countries using it. Otherwise, we might have a economic difference, something that happened with the oil.
Graph Source : InRev F-Cube
For more in depth data and graphs, visit http://www.f-cube.us/
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Tagged as business and environment, green economy + Categorized as Economy articles