Homework #7: Reflection

When I first came to Brazil I had no idea the scale of what “going green” meant. Growing up I was always taught to practice green behavior by recycling, turning of water and lights when not in use, and by using green products when available. Throughout my lifetime I would hear more and more about renewable energy and how more places were starting to us it. The main concept with renewable energy is that current practices like oil 1) give off negative emissions into the environment and 2) use resources the eventually will run out. New energies like wind, solar, and hydro started a new market that provided energy without harming the environment and harnessed that energy without depleting the resource.

      It all seemed so simple to me, but why wasn’t everyone using renewables then? In my mind the answer was it is just too expensive. While I am not wrong and setting up wind turbines, solar panels, and water turbines is very costly, there is also more to it. For example, we visited a solar power plant during our stay here. The entire operation was very impressive and took up a large area of space with the panels and buildings where they monitor everything.  We learned that the plant has a capacity of about 15-20 MW. At first, that didn’t really mean anything to me since it was just a measurement that before this trip I hadn’t heard about. Later in our trip however, we also visited a hydro plant with a capacity of 900 MW. In comparison, solar then seemed like a really bad idea to me since it takes so much to set up and produces so little. For even more perspective, I researched what the capacity for a coal power plant was and found that even the smallest of all the plants in the world had a capacity of 2,000 MW.

      With all of this in mind it is very clear to me why renewable energy hasn’t become more widely used. Yes, it is better for the environment and yes, it provides energy that will create electricity that will work the same as what you get from oil. However, setting up these renewable energy plants is costly and the energy created is much smaller then what we already get from coal power plants that are already in place.  

      On top of the smaller scale of energy that renewables create, there are also hesitations for setting up these energies. As stated in “Sustainable energy without hot air” the main conception of renewables have downsides as well. Wind turbines kill birds and just about every form of renewable is too expensive. Of course, the burning of coal is also expensive and creates CO2 emissions that has negative impacts on our environment so that seems like a bad idea as well. However, coal does have one huge advantage and that is the processes for converting coal to oil are already in place. Not only does setting up renewable energy sources cost a significant amount of money but it also requires a lot of space which means large equipment that alters our environment. Furthermore, the finite amount of time we have to use oil is hundreds and hundreds of years so there is no motivation to make the switch.

      I know that sustainable energy is the future and is a much better option environmentally for the world.  I also know that wind, solar, and hydro, (along with other forms such as biomass, nuclear, and waves) are all viable options that can replace non-renewable options successfully. However, now I have a much better understanding of what that all means. Renewable energy is a very large operation that is expensive and currently creates energy in a less efficient was than oil operations. The switch to renewable energy also requires energy from both the suppliers and consumers which is a whole other obstacle. Overall, after spending time learning about sustainable energy I have a much greater appreciation for oil as well as the efforts made for renewable energy after.