There is no such thing as totally RENEWABLE energy.

== Definitions == My opponent focuses the entire debate on what the term "renewable" means, so this is fundamentally going to be a semantics debate. American Heritage defines "renewable" as: "Relating to a natural resource, such as solar energy, water, or wood, that is never used up or that can be replaced by new growth." [1] Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines "renewable" as: "restored or replaced by natural processes : able to be replaced by nature." [2] Google defines "renewable" as: "(of a natural resource or source of energy) not depleted when used." The Texas Legislature has defined "renewable energy" as: "Any energy resource that is naturally regenerated over a short time scale and derived directly from the sun (such as thermal, photochemical, and photoelectric), indirectly from the sun (such as wind, hydropower, and photosynthetic energy stored in biomass), or from other natural movements and mechanisms of the environment (such as geothermal and tidal energy). Renewable energy does not include energy resources derived from fossil fuels, waste products from fossil sources, or waste products from inorganic sources." [3] The common theme here is that "renewable" means something that either (a) we can create more of (like biofuels derived from algae) or (b) something that derives from natural processes, so our use of its does not deplete it. Contention 1: solar, wind, etc. meets my definition of renewable The Google definition is the most clear: that renewable means something that is not depleted by our use of it. My opponent says the sun is not renewable because it will some day run out of energy and supernova. However, I have three responses to this. First, that's not the definition of "renewable." Our *use* of sunlight does not actually deplete the sun. The sun was going to emit that sunlight anyway. We are merely tapping into a natural process that was going to happen anyway. Similarly, wind energy comes from the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun, causing air to move from colder areas to warmer areas. Wind energy will continue to exist as long as the sun exists, and our use of it does not deplete the total amount of wind that there is. Second, when the sun supernovas, we will either (a) all die from the supernova, or (b) travel to another solar system that has its own sun. Therefore, either we all die, so we won't need an energy source, or we can find another sun. We will never be in a scenario where we are alive and without sunlight. This particular form of power, therefore, will always be viable for all practical purposes. Third, there are types of energy that meet even my opponent's absurd definition of "renewable." Biofuels can be made by growing algae. We can literally "renew" our supply of algae whenever we went. Obviously, this is in sharp contrast to fossil fuels, which require so much time and pressure that we can never practically renew the Earth's supply of them. Lastly, I'll note that words are an artificial construct and are only useful to us in distinguishing things from each other. The words "renewable energy" is only useful as a concept to distinguish sustainable sources of energy from unsustainable ones. To define "renewable" the way my opponent does would mean that there would be no word in the English language to distinguish (solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuel) from (fossil fuels). There's no point in defining "renewable" in such a way so as to rob the word of any usefulness. Furthermore, given that language is an artificial construct that dies with us, it seems safe to define renewable as including sunlight because if there is no sunlight, we are all dead and there will be no language. So any problems with the word "renewable" and the sun eventually dying pretty much solve themselves, because the word "renewable" will die with us when the sun does. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com... [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] http://www.treia.org...