Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy

Definition and examples

Agriculture is the sole provider of human food. Most farm machines are driven by fossil fuels, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and, in turn, accelerate climate change. Such environmental damage can be mitigated by the promotion of renewable resources which produces the so-called Renewable energy. Renewable energy produced from sources that do not deplete or can be replenished within a human’s life time. The most common examples include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and hydropower. This is in contrast to non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels.

Most renewable energy is derived directly or indirectly from the heat. The main source of heat on the earth is the sun. Sunlight can be captured directly using solar technologies. The sun's heat drives  winds, whose energy is captured with turbines. Plants also rely on the sun to grow and their stored energy can be utilized for bioenergy.
Not all renewable energy sources rely on the sun. For example, geothermal energy utilizes the Earth’s internal heat, and hydropower relies on the flow of water.

Green energy vs fossil energy

Green energy produces little or no environmental emissions and does not rely on imported fuels. Renewable resources are not finite and many are available throughout the country, while fossil fuels are finite and are decreasing in availability. Price competitiveness has been a concern; but costs have decreased significantly since the initial wave of interest in renewable energy in the 1970s. Fossil fuels prices on the other hand are considerably increasing

Expanding the potential of renewable energy

Renewable energy technologies are being used in a variety of applications on farms and ranches and there are many opportunities to expand their use in the future. From my point of view, using these environment-friendly energy sources will significantly decrease the danger of the climate change as a substantial decrease of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere will occur. The main challenge of applying these technologies is that they still lack more development. The development of new energy future will require research, development, demonstration, deployment, and commercialization of new technologies. Collaboration, education, policy and high investments will all be important. Clean development provides industrialized countries with an incentive to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries to achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions at the lowest cost. Moreover, the farmers should be encouraged by subsidies to use renewable energy technology. This will maximize crop productivity and maintain economic stability, while minimizing the utilization of

finite natural resources and detrimental environmental impacts through minimizing the use of non-renewable energy resources.

Sources

http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2006-1/biofuels/2006-1-05.htm
https://www.studentenergy.org/topics/renewable-energy