Renewable energy systems have rapidly become more efficient and cheaper over the past 30 years. A large majority of worldwide newly installed electricity capacity is now renewable. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, have seen significant cost reductions over the past decade, making them more competitive with traditional fossil fuels. In most countries, photovoltaic solar or onshore wind are the cheapest new-build electricity. From 2011 to 2021, renewable energy grew from 20% to 28% of global electricity supply. Power from sun and wind accounted for most of this increase, growing from a combined 2% to 10%. Use of fossil energy shrank from 68% to 62%. In 2022, renewables accounted for 30% of global electricity generation, and are projected to reach over 42% by 2028. Many countries already have renewables contributing more than 20% of their total energy supply, with some generating over half or even all their electricity from renewable sources.
The main motivation to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources is to slow and eventually stop climate change, which is widely agreed to be caused mostly by greenhouse gas emissions. In general, renewable energy sources cause much lower emissions than fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency estimates that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, 90% of global electricity generation will need to be produced from renewable sources. Renewables also cause much less air pollution than fossil fuels, improving public health, and are less noisy.
The deployment of renewable energy still faces obstacles, especially fossil fuel subsidies, lobbying by incumbent power providers, and local opposition to the use of land for renewables installations. Like all mining, the extraction of minerals required for many renewable energy technologies also results in environmental damage. In addition, although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. For example, some biomass sources are unsustainable at current rates of exploitation. (Full article...)
As of the end of 2017, Brookfield Renewable owned over 200 hydroelectric plants, 100 wind farms, over 550 solar facilities, and four storage facilities, with approximately 16,400 MW of installed capacity.
Brookfield Asset Management claims to have "more than 100 years of experience as an owner, operator and developer of hydroelectric power facilities." It was founded in the 1890s in Brazil, where the company installed the first electrical lights and tramways in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. (Full article...)
"One of the new forces propelling renewable energy development is the potential to create new industries and generate millions of new jobs. Jobs from renewables now number in the hundreds of thousands in several countries. Germany, which has led renewable energy development for more than a decade, had more than 300,000 people employed in renewables industries in 2009, almost equaling the number of jobs in the country’s largest manufacturing sector, automobiles."
"Most of the large fiscal stimulus packages launched since late 2008 to combat the global recession have included significant funding for renewable energy. This has prevented a more pronounced economic downturn in the United States and has created a new industry almost from scratch in South Korea, which devoted four-fifths of its fiscal stimulus to the green economy. In total, nearly $200 million in green stimulus funding has been allocated to renewables and energy efficiency."
"The 1,230 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power generating capacity in place at the end of 2009 now constitutes just over 25 percent of total generating capacity worldwide. This is over three times nuclear generating capacity and roughly 38 percent of the capacity of fossil fuel-burning power plants worldwide."
John Ingle Yellott (October 25, 1908 – December 30, 1986) was an American engineer recognized as a pioneer in passive solar energy, and an inventor with many patents to his credit. In his honor the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Solar Division confers a biannual "John I. Yellott Award" which "recognizes ASME members who have demonstrated sustained leadership within the Solar Energy Division, have a reputation for performing high-quality solar energy research and have made significant contributions to solar engineering through education, state or federal government service or in the private sector." (Full article...)
... that the Cragsidecountry house in Northumberland, England was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power? In 1870, water from one of the estate's lakes was used to drive a Siemensdynamo in what was the world's first hydroelectric power station. The resultant electricity was used to power an arc lamp installed in the Gallery in 1878.
Image 4Museum Hydroelectric power plant "Under the Town" in Užice, Serbia, built in 1900. (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 5Enhanced geothermal system 1:Reservoir 2:Pump house 3:Heat exchanger 4:Turbine hall 5:Production well 6:Injection well 7:Hot water to district heating 8:Porous sediments 9:Observation well 10:Crystalline bedrock (from Geothermal energy)
Image 6Cost development of solar PV modules per watt (from Solar energy)
Image 9Electricity generation at Wairakei, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 10Acceptance of wind and solar facilities in one's community is stronger among U.S. Democrats (blue), while acceptance of nuclear power plants is stronger among U.S. Republicans (red). (from Wind power)
Image 12The Hoover Dam in the United States is a large conventional dammed-hydro facility, with an installed capacity of 2,080 MW. (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 16Greenhouses like these in the Westland municipality of the Netherlands grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. (from Solar energy)
Image 17A turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield in the U.K. (2008). Even longer 2-piece blades are now manufactured, and then assembled on-site to reduce difficulties in transportation. (from Wind power)
Image 18Yearly hydro generation by continent (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 20Seasonal cycle of capacity factors for wind and photovoltaics in Europe under idealized assumptions. The figure illustrates the balancing effects of wind and solar energy at the seasonal scale (Kaspar et al., 2019). (from Wind power)
Image 29Parabolic dish produces steam for cooking, in Auroville, India. (from Solar energy)
Image 30Energy from wind, sunlight or other renewable energy is converted to potential energy for storage in devices such as electric batteries or higher-elevation water reservoirs. The stored potential energy is later converted to electricity that is added to the power grid, even when the original energy source is not available. (from Wind power)
Image 31Electricity generation at Ohaaki, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 33The Warwick Castle water-powered generator house, used for the generation of electricity for the castle from 1894 until 1940 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 34Installed geothermal energy capacity, 2022 (from Geothermal energy)
Image 35Solar water heaters facing the Sun to maximize gain (from Solar energy)
Image 36Share of electricity production from hydropower, 2022 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 37Global map of wind power density potential (from Wind power)
Image 38Hydro generation by country, 2021 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 40Electricity production by source (from Wind power)
Image 41Distribution of wind speed (red) and energy (blue) for all of 2002 at the Lee Ranch facility in Colorado. The histogram shows measured data, while the curve is the Rayleigh model distribution for the same average wind speed. (from Wind power)
Image 42Share of electricity production from wind, 2022 (from Wind power)
Image 43Krafla Geothermal Station in northeast Iceland (from Geothermal energy)
Image 44Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system – one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent.[needs update] (from Solar energy)
Image 45Greenhouse gas emissions per energy source. Wind energy is one of the sources with the least greenhouse gas emissions. (from Wind power)
Image 47Wind turbines such as these, in Cumbria, England, have been opposed for a number of reasons, including aesthetics, by some sectors of the population. (from Wind power)
Image 48Onshore wind cost per kilowatt-hour between 1983 and 2017 (from Wind power)
Image 49A panoramic view of the United Kingdom's Whitelee Wind Farm with Lochgoin Reservoir in the foreground. (from Wind power)
Image 50Global map of wind speed at 100 meters on land and around coasts. (from Wind power)
Image 51Wind turbine floating off France (from Wind power)
Image 52Global geothermal electric capacity. Upper red line is installed capacity; lower green line is realized production. (from Geothermal energy)
Image 57Merowe Dam in Sudan. Hydroelectric power stations that use dams submerge large areas of land due to the requirement of a reservoir. These changes to land color or albedo, alongside certain projects that concurrently submerge rainforests, can in these specific cases result in the global warming impact, or equivalent life-cycle greenhouse gases of hydroelectricity projects, to potentially exceed that of coal power stations. (from Hydroelectricity)
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![Image 44Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system – one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent.[needs update] (from Solar energy)](view_image.php?q=Portal:Renewable_energy&sq=CIA director William Burns&lang=en&file=File:Photo_of_the_Week-_Boosting_Solar_Technology_(8722948189).jpg)
