Why is important for business to use renewable energy?
Why is important for ‘business’ to use renewable energy? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Do you know a company that uses renewable energy and has reduced its carbon footprint? And one that doesn’t and is considerably contributing to global warming etc
It’s important because fossil fuels are a finite resource. Global oil production is beginning to decline as old oil fields reach their peak, (the Gwhar and Cantrell giant oil fields for example,) and their production curves begin the inevitable slide downwards. Although new oil fields are being discovered, they are not very large, and for every new barrel of oil found, eight are being used at the same time.
A report from the UK Energy Research Centre published in August said that there was a ’significant risk’ that the peak of conventional oil production would happen before 2020, and that means we will soon be staring down the barrel of the ultimate oil crisis.
Some governments and corporations are waking up to this and beginning to develop alternatives to keep the worlds transport systems moving when cheap oil runs out, such as more energy efficient – or electric cars, bio fuels (which put the world’s food supply under pressure,) and hydrogen (which is too dangerous for public use at present,) but none of these is likely to make up the shortfall in time.
Many point to the tar sands and oil shales and the trillions of barrels of oil that are locked up in them, but even if investment in them poured in and everything went well:
‘oil sands might produce 6 million barrels of oil per day in 20 years’ time, but by then we’ll need to add at least 10 times that much capacity – without allowing for any growth in demand. It’s very hard to see non-conventional (oil sources) riding to the rescue.’ (Steven Sorrel, lead author of the UKERC report.)
There is also the problem that extracting non conventional oil supplies is very environmentally destructive, and if they were fully exploited, would hugely increase CO2 emissions, before they were even burned as fuel.
We must also remember that many of the rare earth metals that are needed to develop fuel efficient technologies are only found in China, and they have decided to limit or even ban the export of these metals, leaving all the other countries that wish to expand their use of such technologies at a disadvantage.
So the only businesses that can secure energy supplies are those that invest in renewable energies now, before the oil price rises, (due to demand outstripping supply,) and before the costs of making such renewables rises too as a result of resource depletion and the constrained supply of raw materials.
Renewable energy costs more – many people don’t realise this. Check out the ‘green tariffs’ of energy companies. Using wind turbines to generate electricity is the most inefficient way possible. It costs so much to generate a small amount of power that they are not feasible, but this stupid Government obviously has not looked into it properly.
Listen Kelly L. don’t tell people to ignore me, it’s up to them to decide – we are all entitled to our opinion – you’ve had you little rant and make out you know it all but I have read the reports and the books and as far as I know, green energy is expensive to produce here in the UK. No wind turbine runs at it’s full capacity all the time – it is impossible as the wind does not blow all the time, ergo they are inefficient.
References :
Ignore lynda lou. When it comes to renewable energy, yes there are increased cost up front,but where producing your own energy or buying into a co-op of wind turbines, PV’s or other forms of alternative sources pays off, is in the long run over time. The other reasons associated with ‘why’ businesses should use alternative energy is from an investors standpoint, where one can see this company is not only looking at its bottom line with externalize costs but, it is also planning on being around for a more realistic future.
Remember you will always have people who are going to be vehemently against change, it’s human nature.
One company in Colorado who is very progressive and successful is the New Belgium brewery <http://www.newbelgium.com/> .
One example of an industry not doing much or anything to lower its carbon foot print is U.S. housing (single handily in the U.S. has the largest carbon footprint), this mainly includes existing dwelling but we are still building homes and builds over all that are extremely inefficient compared to the standards already set in Europe.
References :
It’s important because fossil fuels are a finite resource. Global oil production is beginning to decline as old oil fields reach their peak, (the Gwhar and Cantrell giant oil fields for example,) and their production curves begin the inevitable slide downwards. Although new oil fields are being discovered, they are not very large, and for every new barrel of oil found, eight are being used at the same time.
A report from the UK Energy Research Centre published in August said that there was a ’significant risk’ that the peak of conventional oil production would happen before 2020, and that means we will soon be staring down the barrel of the ultimate oil crisis.
Some governments and corporations are waking up to this and beginning to develop alternatives to keep the worlds transport systems moving when cheap oil runs out, such as more energy efficient – or electric cars, bio fuels (which put the world’s food supply under pressure,) and hydrogen (which is too dangerous for public use at present,) but none of these is likely to make up the shortfall in time.
Many point to the tar sands and oil shales and the trillions of barrels of oil that are locked up in them, but even if investment in them poured in and everything went well:
‘oil sands might produce 6 million barrels of oil per day in 20 years’ time, but by then we’ll need to add at least 10 times that much capacity – without allowing for any growth in demand. It’s very hard to see non-conventional (oil sources) riding to the rescue.’ (Steven Sorrel, lead author of the UKERC report.)
There is also the problem that extracting non conventional oil supplies is very environmentally destructive, and if they were fully exploited, would hugely increase CO2 emissions, before they were even burned as fuel.
We must also remember that many of the rare earth metals that are needed to develop fuel efficient technologies are only found in China, and they have decided to limit or even ban the export of these metals, leaving all the other countries that wish to expand their use of such technologies at a disadvantage.
So the only businesses that can secure energy supplies are those that invest in renewable energies now, before the oil price rises, (due to demand outstripping supply,) and before the costs of making such renewables rises too as a result of resource depletion and the constrained supply of raw materials.
References :
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net