Challenge of Renewable Energy - Research Paper Example

Renewable Energy Will Be the Most Significant Challenge for the Oil Industry’ Context/Introduction Renewable energy will not be the major challenge for the oil industry because of many factors. The use of oil is preferred by many people because it is efficient, requires simple infrastructure, has high energy return on investment and the overall cost of oil is low compared to renewable energy. The pre-quite required for the preparation of the renewable energy are many compared to petroleum oil. For instance, the electric-car development requires a lot of requirements. The changes include an overhaul of the entire infrastructure. The process will also entail the retooling of factories in order to produce electric energy compatible vehicles. 1. Infrastructure It is not true that renewable energy will be a challenge for the oil industry because of many factors. The renewable energy requires more infrastructure compared to the petroleum oil (Piotrowiak (2012). This process makes the consumers abandon the renewable sources of energy for oil. The price of oil usually fluctuates. It creates uncertainty in the market. The consumers are subjected to speculation. This process affects the prices of other products given that the industries rely on petroleum oil to run their plant and machinery. The petroleum oil undergoes many processes before obtaining pure oil. However, the other sources of energy like wind energy involves many processes. The transition to the use of electric cars will need an industrial transition from the old model spare parts to the manufacturing of electric vehicle spare parts. The adoption of renewable energy vehicles will require continuous monitoring and control software in order to maintain proper functioning of the vehicle. Thus renewable energy will not be a major challenge for the oil industry. The process will cause an additional cost to the owners of vehicles. According to Chan (2012), the marginal returns from the transport business will drastically reduce. Consequently, many potential investors in the transport will be sent away. The electric vehicles will also require extensive facilities for the safe transmission of electric energy to the intended destination. The transmission facilities will require extra electric energy. The cost of using this form of energy will be high. The common form of renewable component, ethanol, and gasoline are not suitable because of the high oxygen content of the mixture. The high oxygen content makes the mixture unsuitable for pipeline transmission. Safe transmission is financially constraining. The additional costs make the preference of the renewable energy sources expensive compared to the use of petroleum. The battery charging at administration stations will advance the buy of batteries for customers. Subsequently, there will be far-reaching of low carbon emanation vitality utilization (Huang, 2009). The venture will pioneer the utilization of zero-outflow structures. The global group will be pulled into the regions, and the city will draw in remote immediate speculations. The low carbon vitality is modest in light of the fact that it is a renewable wellspring of vitality. Numerous commercial ventures experience the ill effects of the high expenses of force and the expense of their emanations in their separate territories of operation. 1. The cost of renewable energy The costs associated with the development and the integration of the use of renewable energy makes the source of energy unsuitable compared to petroleum use. Petroleum use not associated with high levels of carbon production. Carbon is harmful to human respiratory system and pollutes the environment. According to Ioinovici (2011), a massive carbon production from industries compromises the livelihood of terrestrial animals. According to engineering committee on oceanic resources (2008), the carbon depletes the ozone layer, which is important in life sustenance. The carbon is also harmful because carbonic acid is formed when rainwater combines with carbon gas. The acid is harmful to plants and animals. The use of petroleum oil prevents the knocking of engines given that only diesel contains lead in the source of energy. Therefore, a global energy transition will eliminate carbon emission from the environment. Consequently, environmental conservation will be achieved. In this regard, renewable energy will be a significant challenge for the oil industry. There is a need to decentralize the energy consumption. Rozelot (2013) asserts that the use of renewable source of energy will enhance the decentralization of energy. Consequently, the supply of energy will be adequate. Net energy is also a determinant of the form of energy to adopt. Renewable energy is ideal because it leads to an adequate supply of energy, which will provide for reserve energy for consumption in emergency cases. The amount of energy utilized in the production of energy should be low in order to maintain high levels of returns. When renewable energy source is used, the energy return in investment is high compared to when the petroleum oil energy is used. The material input requirements for the renewable energy is high compared to petroleum oil. Therefore, the costs associated with the generation of energy from renewable energy source are higher than the cost of energy generation for petroleum oil. According to Strzelecki (2011), a renewable energy generation requires rare earth elements, which makes it difficult for the large scale generation of the energy. For instance, solar energy requires photovoltaic technology, which is expensive. Additionally, the fuel cells need elements like palladium and platinum, which are rare. The batteries also require lithium element. Lithium is not easily accessible. In this respect, the renewable energy generation is not reliable as a source of energy. It is why it is not a major challenge for the oil industry. Moreover, the energy saving technology requires indium and gallium elements, which are not easily accessible. 2. Energy Return on investment The energy generated from biogas also is available but it is not sustainable. Moreover, the energy return on investment of biogas and tar sand is considerably low. The price of oil is usually high and increases while the prices of the renewable sources of energy remain constant. According to Asian development bank (2009), a renewable energy source negatively influences the market. Therefore, it is false that the renewable energy will be the most significant challenge for the oil industry. The price of renewable sources of energy depends on the price of the oil. Oil is used to run some of the machine and equipment used in the generation of the renewable sources of energy. This results to the corresponding increase in the overall cost of the energy when oil price shoots up. The other procedure, which will upgrade the low carbon vitality utilization, is the charging of shopper batteries at electric vehicle administration stations. In this respect, shoppers will not charge their batteries utilizing the fossil-fuel source. The utilization of the recent charging alternative prompts discharge of some carbon contrasted with the utilization of green power. The electric cars will also require the development of a large-scale vehicle battery industry. The electric vehicles will require battery charging and recharging in order to sustain their operations. The electrification of transport will require a lot of processes. Additionally, there must be invention of appropriate instruments for the maintenance of the new model of vehicles. The new model of electric vehicles will also require slightly different set of spare parts. It will create another problem because the old model vehicles will be rendered redundant. It is not agreeable that the renewable energy is a challenge for the oil industry because the energy density for this category of energy source is relatively low compared to the petroleum oil. In this regard, petroleum oil has the highest energy density. Intersociety energy conversion engineering conference (2013) claims that a small amount of petroleum oil generates high amounts of energy compared to all other energy sources. This attribute is important especially in the transport sector. A small amount of petroleum oil generates enough energy for a vehicle to cover high mileage. The vehicles have a low capacity, which makes petroleum oil the bet source of energy for transport. The renewable sources of energy have low energy density. The battery technology utilizes renewable energy, but the batteries exceed the battery energy density of 3MJ per kilogram (Nanda, 2011). In this regard, the low energy density associated with the renewable source of energy will pose a great challenge to the transport sector. The vehicles will have to recharge their batteries after covering short ranges. This process will increase commutation time. Consequently, the cost of maintaining the electric supply of batteries will be difficult. Conclusion The renewable energy will not be a major challenge for the oil industry. The petroleum energy is suitable to the extent that there is low consumption of energy in the production of energy. The conversion efficiency of energy in the case of petroleum oil is high compared to the renewable energy source. This process proves that the petroleum oil energy is efficient than renewable energy. The energy return on investment indicates high maintenance of the both social and economic complexity pertaining to energy. The renewable energy is sustainable because of its availability; for instance, solar energy is available most of the time except during winter. Resources Asian development bank. (2009). Energy indicators of developing member countries of Asain Development Bank. Manila, Asian Development Bank, Energy and Industry Dept Chan, S. (2012). Competition in Hong Kongs gas industry. Hong Kong, ChineseUniv. Press. Engineering committee on oceanic resources. (2008). Wave energy conversion. Amsterdam, Elsevier. Huang, H. (2009). Building Hong Kong: environmental considerations. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Univ. Press. Intersociety energy conversion engineering conference. (2010).Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference: August 7-11, 1994, Monterey, CA: a collection of technical papers. Washington, D.C., American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Ioinovici, A. (2011). Power Electronics and Energy Conversion Systems, Fundamentals and Hard-switching Converters. Chicester, Wiley. Nanda, J. (2011). Emerging trends in power systems: proceedings of the Eighth National Power Systems Conference. New Delhi: Allied Publishers. Piotrowiak, P. (2012). Solar energy conversion: dynamics of interfacial electron and excitation transfer. Cambridge, Royal Society of Chemistry. Rozelot, J.-P. (2013). Transport and energy conversion in the heliosphere: lectures given at the CNRS Summer School on Solar Astrophysics, Oléron, France, 25 - 29 May 1998. Berlin , Springer. Strzelecki, R. (2010). Power electronics in smart electrical energy networks. London: Springer. Read More