Renewable Energy Sources

What Is a Renewable Energy Source?

Renewable energy sources refer to energy sources that occur abundantly in nature and are continuously replenished through natural processes. Unlike fossil fuels, they don't take long ages to form and don't cause the same level of environmental harm when used. Their defining feature is that they are part of the Earth's natural workings — they exist in the planet's physical cycles even when not used.

Renewable Energy Sources

1. Hydropower: Gravity stems from the Earth's mass and has been one of our planet's fundamental forces since its formation. Gravity plays a huge role in all natural processes, including the water cycle. Hydropower is the generation of electricity using surface water flows created by gravity in the water cycle. In these systems, dams on rivers and streams store this gravitational energy as potential energy and convert it into electricity.
2. Geothermal Energy: This type of energy comes from electricity generation in steam turbines using hot water trapped underground through natural processes and the heat from its steam.
3. Solar Energy: Since its formation, the sun has been our source of heat and light. It has been sending energy to Earth for millions of years. This is a completely natural process and essential for the continuity of Earth's ecosystems. According to calculations, the sun will continue providing energy to Earth for millions more years, making it effectively a 'limitless' source of energy. Solar energy is a form of energy made usable by converting sunlight into electricity using solar panels.
4. Wind Energy: Like the other sources mentioned above, winds are air currents that occur through the Earth's natural processes and continuously arise across the atmosphere. These currents are driven mainly by the Earth's rotation on its own axis and temperature differences across various regions of the atmosphere. Wind energy is the generation of electricity from these air currents using massive wind turbines.
5. Biomass: Biomass energy describes the production of fuels such as methane from ecosystem-sourced waste — including forestry residues, agricultural waste, plant and animal waste, and household waste — and generating electricity by burning these fuels in steam turbines. Although it draws on natural processes like other renewables, biomass energy causes carbon emissions because it involves combustion. So while it is renewable, it isn't fully clean. Still, its carbon emissions are very low compared to other fossil fuels, which makes it a relatively clean source.
6. Tidal and Wave Energy: This type of energy generates electricity using the rise and fall the sun and moon create in Earth's seas and oceans. As a relatively newly utilized energy source, it hasn't yet achieved high efficiency, but it is an energy source with strong potential.

Why Renewable Energy Sources Matter

Renewable energy sources matter for two key reasons:

• Sustainability — The defining feature of renewable energy sources, as the name suggests, is that they are renewable. When used, they take nothing away from the Earth or its ecosystems and are restored through natural processes in a short time. Unlike fossil resources, they don't pose the threat of depletion.
• Low carbon emissions — One of the biggest reasons for choosing renewable energy sources is their very low carbon emissions. Leaving aside biomass, their direct emissions are close to zero. Using renewable energy sources is therefore also critical for protecting the environment and slowing global warming.

The Role of Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable energy sources are actively used today. Renewable sources meet roughly 10% of the world's energy needs, with about 7% of that coming from hydropower. The majority of the remaining 3% comes from solar and wind energy.

So why are renewable energy sources used so little compared to fossil fuels despite being so clean and beneficial? This can be explained by some of the disadvantages of renewable energy sources:

• Efficiency: Efficiently generating energy from renewable sources requires high-tech facilities. The technologies in question are still developing and have a long road ahead. At this point, when we compare the time and financial resources spent to generate energy from these sources, energy efficiency still falls well below that of fossil fuels.
• Access to Technology: While the technologies mentioned above are being studied and used in developed countries, access is limited in developing and less technologically advanced countries.
• Development and Maintenance: The technologies developed to capture value from renewables are costly both at the R&D stage and in the maintenance of the facilities built — contributing to lower energy efficiency compared to fossil fuels.

Given these disadvantages, while renewable energy sources hold great potential, there's still significant progress to make in efficiency. Considering the damage fossil fuel use has done to the planet, however, we can expect rising concerns about the world's sustainability to change views on cost and energy efficiency and drive the world toward renewables. Looking at global warming, the depletion of fossil resources, and the momentum of global sustainability efforts, it's fair to say that environmental concerns will likely drive the shift to renewables as the primary energy source even before they surpass fossil fuels on energy efficiency.

Renewable Energy Sources and Sustainability

We've noted that renewable energy sources cause far less environmental damage than fossil fuels. We've also discussed how the shift to these sources will be driven by either technological progress or environmental concerns. There is a major reason to expect environmental concerns to be the main driver: carbon taxes.

The CBAM regulations the EU will fully implement in 2026 require organizations to purchase certificates for their carbon emissions and pay a carbon tax proportional to those emissions. Over time, energy generated from low-emission renewable sources is expected to be counted as negative emissions, lowering the costs of the taxes these regulations create.

Conclusion

Renewable energy sources are seen as the energy source of the future because they are renewable and produce low carbon emissions. Although their use is not yet widespread due to some current disadvantages, their benefits are expected to outweigh their challenges in the future, and the world is expected to shift toward these sources. At this point, it's very likely that the EU — which has become extremely selective about carbon emissions in recent years — will accelerate this shift with specific regulations.

In short, using renewable energy sources is critical for future generations to inhabit a livable planet, as we do today.