Clean Energy - Counting the Cost
by Thomas Marcum
First lets look at some statistics. In Germany 6.2 percent of electricity comes from solar energy. Germany is a world leader when it comes to solar power. In 2014, Germany was able to harness almost 36 percent of the sun's energy with it's improved solar panels.
Germany uses wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to produce a outstanding 27.8 percent of the country's total power. While that is pretty amazing, it came at a great cost.
Rewiring and creating the infrastructure for renewable energy resulted in massive cost. At the end of 2013 that cost had reached $468 billion. This was paid by government subsidies, which in the end is passed on to the taxpayers. But that is not where it ends. In Germany, the average electricity prices for companies jumped 60 percent. Residential prices also got hit hard. The average price for residential homes when from 18 cents per kilowatt hour in 2000 to more than 37 cents in 2013. This has had some impact on the German economy. Some companies have already relocated some of their businesses out of Germany.
While most of us want to move towards cleaner energy sources, there is some problems that we need to sort out. One of the main problems is storing the collected power to use later. While we do have some battery systems, they are just not affordable or efficient enough to be reliable. That may change in the future. Another problem, when talking about wind and solar energies, is that both fluctuate. These fluctuations have causes a large increase in power disruptions. Dr. Klaus of the European Institute for Climate and Energy said the power supply in Germany "is highly vulnerable. A blackout could occur on any given day."
While most of us do want to move towards these clean energies, the move may be coming too fast and at too greater cost. In the US, the move towards natural gas and away from coal has left many America workers without a job. This shift to natural gas has resulted in a increase in electricity bills for a lot of Americans. The price of natural gas delivered to electric generators was 44 percent higher the first half of 2013 as compared to the same time frame of 2012. The end results were customers paying higher bills.
There has also been some other hopeful renewable energy sources. While some of it is less conventional. Swedish researchers are working on biological fuel cells by extracting fluorescent protein from a flow in the dark jellyfish. A french company is capturing body heat from commuters to heat apartments. A group of Nigerian teenagers developed a generator that can produce up to six hours of power on one liter of urine.
While renewable energy is a noble, noteworthy and needed endeavor, we must not force it too fast. We currently have ample supplies of fossil fuels, we should use them and continue to develop alternative resources. If, we push renewable energy too fast, as the main source of power, we run the risk of putting ourselves in a bad spot if a failure occurs. We should continue to develop and test renewable energies, work out bugs, develop better power storage and work to make it more cost efficient for the consumers. More product testing will lead to a better product and that takes time.
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(Sources: Ect.coop, Philadelphia Trumpet)
