Renewable energy. You’ve very likely heard of it, as it is becoming increasingly popular and a common sight in homes across the world.
While most people understand the benefit of using renewable energy, some still don’t truly understand the benefits of incorporating renewable energy into their overall energy usage.
With all of the brilliant reasons to choose renewable energy, each as good as each other, it’s a wonder more people haven’t chosen to go fully renewable.
In this article, written in collaboration with Summit Energies, a leading provider of Air Source Heat Pumps in Gloucestershire, we’ll explore some of the main reasons why you should choose renewable energy and the impact it could have on future life on Earth.
What Exactly is Renewable Energy?
Renewable energy, also known as green energy, is the power that is generated from natural sources that are replenishable. Essentially, the opposite of non-renewable, finite resources such as coal and oil.
Some common examples of renewable energy include wind power, solar power, hydropower and biomass. Today, renewable energy is in an abundance and it is readily available.
Why Should You Choose Renewable Energy?
It’s clear what exactly renewable energy is, but why should you choose to use it and what benefits could it bring you?
In fact, there is an inexhaustible list of reasons as to why you should choose renewable energy, ranging from economic to public health.
Reason 1: Global Warming
Choosing to use renewable energy is one step towards helping to eradicate global warming.
Every day, human activity pumps carbon dioxide and other emissions into the atmosphere. These emissions trap heat, reflecting it back at the earth, harmfully impacting it and causing issues such as more frequent storms, drought, rising sea levels and destruction of habitats.
Using renewable energy solutions produces little to none of these global-warming-causing emissions. Even when including the emissions that are produced in the manufacturing, installation, operation and decommissioning of renewable energy, the global warming effects are nominal.
Reason 2: Public Health
Pollution is causing huge problems in modern society and the air and water pollution from coal and natural gas plants has been linked to breathing problems and a multitude of other serious health issues.
Most of these pollutants simply aren’t produced by renewable energy.
Wind, solar and hydroelectric systems generate power without any air pollution emissions and whilst biomass systems emit some air pollutants, the total air emissions are much lower than those of traditional non-renewable power sources.
Reason 3: Totally Replenishable
The beauty of renewable energy is that with the natural cycle of life and the planet, we have a limitless supply of wind, sunny skies, plant matter, heat from the earth and water.
Past studies have time after time shown that renewable energy can provide a significant share of the planet’s future electricity needs.
Reason 4: Economic Benefits
Fossil fuels are typically automated and capital intensive, whereas renewable energy is much more labour intensive. Wind farms require maintenance and technicians, solar panels require humans to install them and so on. This means that, on average, renewable energy creates more jobs for each unit of electricity produced than fossil fuels.
Renewable energy also provides much more stable energy prices, thanks to low running costs and that it is much less prone to failure. Wind and solar power are located over large geographical areas, meaning that extreme weather damage is unlikely to cut off power for a whole region.
We hope the above reasons have given you an idea as to why renewable energy is so brilliant. Not only is it clean, sustainable, versatile and it saves on waste, it also produces jobs for an ever-expanding population. Overall, it makes renewable energy an obvious choice for future generations.
