Sustainable Energy Sources
For the long period of time the conventional energy sources, like gas and coal, were utilized throughout the planet. It is because people managed to develop the appropriate technology, which makes it possible to use those resources to the full. However, they have a list of significant disadvantages. They pollute the environment while their cost is not low. They are the basis for the global commodity turnover, which means that minor changes in prices have consequent economic effects for all the nations. For example, one of the reasons for the global economic slowdown of 2016 is the significant decrease in the price of the crude oil. Conventional energy sources are nonrenewable that means the future generations will face the problem of the lack of those resources and will have to find the alternative sources of the energy. At the same time, even today, there is a possibility to develop other types of the energy resources – the sustainable ones, like wind, solar, and geothermal energy as well as hydroelectricity. The present paper focuses on the in-depth analysis of the sustainable energy sources and discusses the possibility of their utilization as an alternative to the conventional types. The paper presents the research in the sections below.
Challenges and Opportunities
The main challenges of dealing with the sustainable energy sources are as follows:
Limited technical capacity to conduct operations and maintenance performance.
The inability of the contemporary power systems to absorb the discontinuous supply of the energy.
Difficulties in the course of the construction and operation.
The lack of professional consultants and contractors.
Undeveloped regulatory and legal frameworks.
The main opportunities are as follows:
The significant decrease in pollution of the environment.
The reduction of the dependence on suppliers of the conventional energy sources.
The decrease in energy losses.
The increase in efficiency by 20% in the short-term period and by about 60% in the period of 15-25 years (Chu & Majumdar, 2012).
Potential Impact
Tester (2005) argues that the sustainable energy sources may have a significant impact on the environment and even lead to the climate change.
In order to present the detailed information concerning the possible impact, the paper discusses the effects of the wind, solar, and geothermal energy as well as hydroelectricity separately on the basis of the findings of Bian, Liu, Zhang & Yang (2015).
Wind energy
The use of land, which depends on the capacity of the turbines and concrete location. The turbines on hills require less land if compared to the turbines located on flat territories.
The impact on birds and bats is low.
The impact on public health is medium since the turbines generate vibration and sound and people cannot live too close to turbines.
Solar energy
The use of land is higher if compared to the location of turbines and, consequently, it is harder to find the proper territory for the PV cells.
Despite the fact that the final solutions for generating energy from the …
