subject: The Falling Cost of Renewables [print this page] The Falling Cost of Renewables The Falling Cost of Renewables
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The major obstacle to increased use of renewable energy technologies remains their high cost relative to fossil fuels. As a result, most of the new technologies currently remain at the niche stage. Those niches are growing rapidly, however. As markets expand, manufacturers of the new technologies can shift toward mass production, a process that can dramatically lower costs.
Solar cells, for example, have gone from powering satellites and remote communication systems to providing energy for a growing range of applications that are not connected to a main power grid, including consumer electronic devices, highway signals, and water pumps.
Remote military bases, island resorts, and wastewater treatment plants are among the niches where fuel cells may soon gain a foothold. Some companies are focusing on developing tiny fuel cells for laptop computers and cellular phones; weighing half as much as conventional batteries, they can supply 50 times as much power.
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Exploiting Renewable Sources of Energy
Growing concern over the world's ever-increasing energy needs and the prospect of rapidly dwindling reserves of oil, natural gas, and uranium fuel have prompted efforts to develop viable alternative energy sources. The volatility and uncertainty of the petroleum fuel supply were dramatically brought to the fore during the energy crisis of the 1970s caused by the abrupt curtailment of oil shipments from the Middle East to many of the highly industrialized nations of the world. It also has been recognized that the heavy reliance on fossil fuels has had an adverse impact on the environment. Gasoline engines and steam-turbine power plants that burn coal or natural gas emit substantial amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. When these gases combine with atmospheric water vapour, they form sulfuric acid and nitric acids, giving rise to highly acidic precipitation. The combustion of fossil fuels also releases carbon dioxide. The amount of this gas in the atmosphere has steadily risen since the mid-1800s largely as a result of the growing consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas. More and more scientists believe that the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide (along with that of other industrial gases such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons) may induce a greenhouse effect, raising the surface temperature of the Earth by increasing the amount of heat trapped in the lower atmosphere. This condition could bring about climatic changes with serious repercussions for natural and agricultural ecosystems.
