Renewables are coming
By: Selman Razaq
Tags: Energy, Sustainable Development, Renewable Energy, Renewables, Sustainability

Renewable power will be available everywhere within the next few decades. That much is not up for debate, as the costs of solar and wind experience significant reductions.

In the past decade alone, the cost of solar has come down by almost 89%. Onshore wind by nearly 70%. The simple truth is that it is likely to fall even further in the coming years. Soon, renewables will be the cheapest source of energy, if it isn’t already.

Why does this matter? Because while being environmentally conscious is great PR and feels good in a moral sense, at the end of the day, the numbers have to make sense.

And soon, they will.

The only question that organisations and governments have to answer is, whether they want to lead this shift from the front, or if they would rather follow the lead of others who took action.

Some have, thankfully, taken considerable action already. While places such as Iceland and Costa Rica are a few years ahead of the others, more and more of other nations and territories are following their lead.

The news that a major power like the UK is heading toward entirely clean energy, following the lead of its own Scotland, is significant. It presents a blueprint for other similarly sized nations to follow. And the more countries and territories that push toward renewables, the better off the planet and all its inhabitants will be.

Every nation will have its own set of unique challenges in their push towards renewable and sustainable power. For some, wind will not be feasible, unlike the UK. Others will not have the abundance of geothermal energy of Iceland. Solar may not work in countries like Sweden where sunlight is absent for longer periods.

However, as the old saying goes, ‘when one door closes, another will open’. Tidal energy is still under utilised despite its proven potential. Hydroelectricity has been around for a long time. If none of these are feasible, there are still much cleaner alternatives to burning fossil fuel such as nuclear and biomass energy.

Nuclear has a bad reputation, and rightly so. If things go wrong, it can lead to a disaster i.e; Chernobyl. But the technology has had decades to improve. And today’s top nuclear scientists will tell us that safety of nuclear power stations have improved considerably over the past few decades. In our push to better protect our beloved planet, nuclear will be an important source that cannot be dismissed.

Biomass is an odd one. It is not the cleanest, as it still relies on burning of organic materials. However, when used appropriately, it can reduce organic waste from domestic and industrial cases. Also, it is still much cleaner than burning of fossil fuel. While not the perfect solution, it is one way of reducing our carbon footprint on a greater scale.

The journey towards fully renewable power around the globe will be a long one. And one where there will be many hurdles for us to jump over.

But the change starts with awareness. And with the awareness, we become more conscious of the need to go renewable. And the world will be a better place for it.