Alternative sources of energy

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Description:

The majority of energy is currently produced by the use of fossil fuels (oil and gas). At this moment the European Union region does not have any major deposit of these types of resources, being almost completely dependent of external suppliers (Russia and Middle Eastern contries).
Renewable sources of energy are an alternative because they can be easily replenished and generated using available resources like waste, Sun and wind. If the researches that are being at this moment, the European Union can become more independent of external fluctuations of prices and supplies of those fossil fuels.

Enablers:

  • Governments
  • Public opinion
  • "Green conscience"
  • Environmental agencies
  • Researchers


Inhibitors:

  • Price of those alternative sources of energy are still high when compared to fossil fuels
  • Alternatives are still not very efficient
  • Financial crisis reduced the amount of money being invested of researches
  • Not aesthetically pleasing e.g wind turbines
  • Hazardous to ecosystems e.g. dams create barriers for migrating fish,
  • Extensive land use is required which could otherwise be farmed


Paradigms:

For 30 years, governments and international institutions have been aware of the limits of conventional energy and its broad damaging consequences. However implementation of renewable sources of energy have not progressed as fast as fossil fuel energy consumption has increased. Governments have tried to reach a global consensus for action which instead leads to paralysis. As a result, world civilizations are still dependent on fossil fuels. Less than 20 billion dollars of the tax payers’ money was spent in the last 30 years to promote renewable energy as opposed to 1 trillion spent on atomic energy research.

Because of that, at this moment, atomic energy may be the best option to fossil fuels, as it has a more developed technology and is being used for several years in a commercial scale.

Experts:

Petroleum geologists

Resources:=

[1] http://www.calder.net/mwright/2003-10-06-renewable-energy.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy
[3] http://www.unfoundation.org/files/pdf/2005/WTOspeeches/ScheerSpeechGeneva2005_FINAL.pdf
[4] http://www.fesdc.org/Dettke_renew.pdf
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