Renewable energy and climate change

Climate change is a reality that must be faced. The health effects of air and water pollution take a huge toll on the health and safety of people all over the world. A large percentage of the CO2 emitted by us is due to the use of fossil fuels for energy. Renewable energy, with its much lower carbon footprint, is one of the most effective tools we have in the fight against climate change.
The carbon footprint of power generated from renewable energy sources is significantly lower than that for fossil fuel based energy sources, sometimes as low as five percent of the former. Consequently, it is obvious that if a large part of our power generation and heating requirements come from renewable energy sources, we could be emitting far less CO2 for the same amount of energy utilized!

Wind and solar energy

Wind and solar energy have seen remarkable growth and significant cost decreases over the past decade. This means the overall economics of renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive with fossil fuels all around the world. In some places, investing in new renewable energy power plants is already cheaper than continuing to operate old, inefficient and dirty fossil fuel-fired or nuclear power plants. Along with hydropower, renewable energy sources today already contribute about 2 TW of total electricity capacity worldwide of a total of about 6.4 TW, almost 30%. As the share of renewables in electricity installed capacity and generation increases, so will its contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Scaling renewable energy

Scaling renewable energy sources in order that they contribute a majority of our electricity and heat sounds like a great idea to some observers. However, there are significant challenges to a large-scale replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. For one, most renewable energy sources are intermittent (sun shines only during the day), and thus energy storage becomes important. There are other operational constraints as well that act as the roadblock to large-scale renewable energy adoption. But the advent of storage batteries bodes well for the future of solar energy production. Estimates indicate that by 2050, solar energy will have likely replaced coal as the largest source of power generation. If this and similar trends happen for renewable energy sources, we are talking about renewable energy starting to make a considerable contribution to global warming reduction.

There has never been a better time to go solar!

If you want to move into the future and join the solar revolution, or if you want to find out what solar panels are right for you, go to HahaSmart.com and try our price checker tool. You can see how much a system will cost, and how much you can save over the next 20 years. 

For more information relating to going solar, don't forget to visit our solar blog section for more handy guides and articles.