Environmental Economic and Political Factors - Essay Example

? Status of Renewable Energy in the United Kingdom Introduction Indigenous sources of energy that is fossil fuels are rapidly depleting, as such, energy security is a major concern and an important topic in the society. UK import oil, gas and coal from overseas, which creates vulnerability incase of fluctuations in global prices, as well as issues with cross-border supply because of too much reliance on the import. As a result, the focus is moving towards increasing renewable energy reserves and limiting reliance on fossil fuels. Renewable energy is energy that relies on sources and natural energy flow from the environment, which never run out because of continuous replenishment. UK has the world’s largest resources for renewable energy such as wind, tides, waves, and therefore, it is in a good position when it comes to natural energy resources. Shifting to renewable energy is not only essential for stopping fossil energy imports, but it will also create an avenue for exporting natural based energy to other countries with limited supply of natural energy. In addition, increasing focus on environmentally friendly energy also prompts UK to switch to renewable energy sources. This aims at limiting the effects of climate change, and protecting environment from degradation, thus, preserving it for the generations to come. The success of venturing into renewable energy depends on environmental economic and political factors. Overview of Renewable Energy Sources in the United Kingdom Renewable energy currently supplies a significant of part of the UK’s energy demands. According to national Statistics by the department of Energy and Climate Change, the renewable energy utilization as at 2012 was as represented below: (National Statistics, 2013) Though there is an impressive increase in share of power derived from natural resources, data according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change show that there is still heavy reliance on fossil fuels import. For instance, the amount of electricity generated through wind power between July and September more than tripled in 2012 the same period. However, UK still depend heavily on fossil fuels especially coal to generate electricity. This could be because renewable energy sources are expensive, for example, the Energy Minister himself, George Eustice, recently made a comment saying solar and wind power subsidies are too high to benefit consumers (Mason, 2013). This among other challenges is preventing renewable energy sources become the primary source of energy production. Plans are underway to attain a 30 percent target of renewable energy by 2020 in the United Kingdom, which is quite achievable given the advancements in technology and rich sources of renewable energy. Below are the primary sources of renewable energy in the United Kingdom and there sources of application. Wind Power Wind power is energy generated using wind turbines fixed in the windy regions especially the countryside. The amount of wind power therefore depends on the availability of acceptable sites. Currently, winds turbines are set up in several places including Wales, Scotland, Yorkshire, and Cornwall. The primary application of wind power is the generation of wind related electricity, in which it currently provides for 20% of electricity requirements in the country. In 2010, there were a number of significant wind related projects in the UK with Sands, Gunfleet, Thanet and Robin Rigg, which are offshore wind farms. As a result, this saw a 1.1 GW power capacity from the new wind, which is a 3% increase compared to 2009 data (Gifford, 2012). Furthermore, offshore installations increased to 230% with 653 MW though with 503W it reduced by 38%. Similarly, 2013 has seen great improvements recording 10GW by mid-2013, and UK being the eighth largest producer of wind power in the world, there is great expectation of growth with respect to its wind power capacity (DUKES, 2013). Furthermore, current estimates stands at 2 GW increase in wind power energy every year for the next five years. The advantage of using wind power is that it leaves to toxic materials behind when removed from a farm, no direct cost of fuel, and with the advancements in technology costs are bound to drop. In addition, wind power is clean, sustainable, no radio active or chemical emissions, economically competitive and less global impacts (Gourlay, 2008). Nevertheless, there are also challenges with wind power and these are protest from some local residents because of visual intrusion and noise problem. Another challenge is that some regions of the entire country maybe too dense to accommodate a significant number of wind farms for power generation. Solar Power The sun is a natural source of energy delivered to each square foot if it is shining. Large-scale experimentation with solar power is in plenty of which trap the sun’s both energy using solar dishes and heat concentrating mirrors. The procedure here involves tracking and focusing the sun’s rays in order to build stream for electricity generation, as its major application. Interestingly, solar can also be used in cooler climates for example the UK, and it is utilized both in large-scale and small scale. In the United Kingdom, there were 230,000 solar power initiatives with 750 MW generating capacity in the United Kingdom at the end of 2011. The capacity of installed solar power projects in the reached 1000 MW in 2012. No doubt, solar power is rapidly becoming popular, as it has done in the past few years influenced by reduction in photovoltaic panels, as well as the Feed-in tariff subsidy introduced in 2012 (DUKES, 2013). Within eight years, the government projects that about 4 million homes will be operating using power from the sun. Thus, the installed power capacity would reach 22, 000 MW by 2020, received and powered by the sun. Solar power faces a great barrier when it comes to its expansion and development because stiff competition with the heavily subsidized electricity and gas. As such, not many people have embraced the idea of solar, except few whoa re committed to a sustainable future. Another challenge of adopting solar is very expensive as compared to other conventional sources of energy (NATA, 2011). The solar energy itself and the process of generating energy using solar panels are not harmful; hence, this type of energy generation promotes environmental sustainability. Water Power This is another primary source of renewable energy in the UK, in which generation of power occurs through two ways, solar power, and lunar power. Waterpower in the form of solar power occurs through the hydrological cycle whereby water evaporates in form of moisture, which turn into clouds and fall down into rivers and streams as rainfall. Therefore, the mechanism of getting energy here is through damming up lakes and rivers, and then passing trapped water through a turbine to generate electricity. This source of energy is renewable, clean, and cheap, and can be used both on large scale and on small-scale basis. On the other hand, lunar power deals with energy derived from tides, in which the moons gravitational pull, attract masses of water to develop tidal rises and fall to generate electricity (NATA, 2011). Similarly, under waterpower energy can also come from wave power to produce electricity. These two each have the potential to produce 20% of the electricity consumption in the UK. Since generation of electricity through lunar power involves constructions of large engineering p[projects, it must raise several environmental concerns. Another challenge is that economies of this project only seem to favor large schemes of power generation, but not smaller-scale schemes of power generation. Benefits of Renewable Energy Renewable energy promotes limited or no emissions at all that cause global warming. Human activity contributes immensely to the global warming by overloading the atmosphere with global warming emissions such as carbon dioxide. For example, electricity generation accounts for about one third of global warming. Therefore, renewable energy sources have low emission footprints as compared to fossil fuels (English, 2008). Another benefit derived from renewable energy is improved environmental quality and public health. Natural gas and coal cause air and water pollution that in turn results in health effects such as cancer, heart attack, breathing problems and neurological damage. Therefore, replacing fossil-based fuels with cleaner version such as renewable energy will eliminate health impacts associated with fossil fuels. Research shows that using an alternative energy in place of fossil fuel reduces lost workdays and premature mortality. In addition, these renewable sources of energy have neither air pollution nor water pollution. This is because wind energy and solar energy requires no water to generate hence no pollution of water resources and no competition with agriculture, drinking systems for the resources; hence, no strain on the water resources. Renewable energy sources provides an immense supply of inexhaustible energy supply from strong winds, sun, water sources such as waves and tides and bio-fuels. These energy sources are inexhaustible because they replenish themselves repeatedly for continuous and endless supply of energy. Therefore, as long as there are enough facilities to generate these renewable energy sources, energy supply never cease. Renewable energy production is more labor intensive as compared to fossil fuel technologies, which are capital intensive and mechanized (National Statistics, 2013). Therefore, it creates numerous opportunities for employment coupled with the fact that it is renewable and thus, bound to last forever. Finally, adopting renewable energy would promote stable energy prices because of lack of uncertainties such as depletion of mining grounds. Moreover, the prices are affordable and still expected top drop over the coming years. Energy Strategy for the Next 25 years Currently the UK primarily relies on fossil fuels for her energy demands. However, if projections are go by then trends indicate that in the next two decades reliance on fossil-based fuels will reduce to 70%, as the percentage comprise of renewable energy sources. In addition, the nuclear and coal power stations built in 1960s and 1970s are almost reaching their end life, therefore, there is need to shift to other sources of energy in order to cater for energy demands of the UK. In the next 25 years, UK will require 40-45GW of electricity generation capacity, but at the same time, it needs to adopt clean energy resources (Anderson, 2008). The first step in strategy would involve drafting a policy that considers all the points mention above. Furthermore, the policy should be committed to developing practices that reduce carbon emission both within the country and within abroad, as well as ensuring, clean, safe and affordable energy sources. Wave and tidal power provides clean and safe energy for the country, but they have not received enough money for development and the opportunity remains unexploited. Wind and tidal power could provide the country with 20% of electricity power demand. Therefore, in the strategy for the next five years the government should finance wind and tidal power projects. This will allow building of facilities to support generation of energy from these sources and thus, exploit their maximum potential to produce energy. A good and appropriately built wind machine would cost about 4 million pounds and generate 3MW capacity (National Statistics, 2013). Similarly, wave energy presents great opportunity through onshore and offshore waves. The same goes for solar power, which offers great potential of deriving clean, safe and renewable energy from the sun to replace the fossil based energy sources currently in use. The strategy does not stop at developing the facilities for production, but also focus on long term and stable certainty. This involves developing market reforms related to matters of electricity, as well as creating a reform planning system that ensures economic support and growth while giving communities much stake in the development. Communities are the heart of a success of every project thus; they should also be involved in these developments and construction of facilities. Development of production facilities comes with many technical issues; hence, the government will also need to fund co-technical activities related to these projects in order to avoid interference with things such as aviation radar. In addition, the strategy also includes a well-organized process to measure delivery so as to ensure everything goes according to schedule and effectiveness. The capacity for storage of the produced energy is also an important factor in this strategy, in which the suggestion is a battery that can store up to 10MWh of energy (Holloway, 2011). One other important factor that cannot be left out in the strategy for the next five years is the cost of renewable energy. Renewable energy sources have come out as expensive making them in accessible to majority of people. Therefore, the government should come out and subsidize the cost of production so that the consumers do not shoulder the cost through higher prices. In the next 25 years, renewable should not be readily available, but is should also be affordable to everyone regardless of the financial or social status (Department of Energy and Climate Change , 2011). Finally, the designs of suitable industrial systems are among the contents of the strategy. This ensures that the development projects should be to the capacity in order to exploit maximum potential of the renewable energy source. Conclusion United Kingdom has relied on energy imported from other countries for a long period now. However, it is greatly reached in other sources of energy know as renewable sources such as wind, tidal waves, solar power and bio-fuels among others. Therefore, it has an opportunity to build a strategy that would help it utilize more of its renewable energy resources to produce energy. The focus is shifting to renewable energy because it is clean, safe and produce limited or no emission to the atmosphere that contributes to global warming. Hence, this is the trend to embrace, and in the next 25 years with a good strategy, the country will be at a greater position in ensuring environmentally sustainable activities. References Anderson, K. (2008). Reframing climate change: from long-term targets to emission pathways. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences , 3863-3882. Department of Energy and Climate Change . (2011). UK Renewable Energy Roadmap. Department of Energy and Climate Change . DUKES. (2013). Department of Energy and Climate Change: Annual tables: ‘Digest of UK energy statistics’ () - Chapter 6: Renewable Sources of energy". Renewable Resources. English, A. (2008, January 20). Fuel's gold - the cost of carbon emissions. The Daily Telegraph . Gifford, J. (2012, February 23). UK hits one GW of PV capacity. PV Magazine . Gourlay, S. (2008, August 12). Wind farms are not only beautiful, they're absolutely necessary. The Guardian (UK) . Holloway, J. (2011, July 30). Europe's "biggest battery" to regulate UK renewable energy. The Guardian . Mason, R. (2013, October 9). Wind and solar power subsidies 'still too high', says environment minister. The Guardian . NATA. (2011). Renewable Energy in the UK: A NATTA Guide for Newcomers. Renew Online. National Statistics. (2013). Renewable Energy Utilisation. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from Department of Energy and Climate Change: https://restats.decc.gov.uk/cms/renewable-energy-utilisation/ Read More