Renewable Energy Sources: Traditional and Modern-Age Technologies

Abstract

Renewable energy (RE) resources are those energy types that are replaced by natural processes over time. However, the noted definition is not complete. After the Industrial Revolution, the rate of energy resources utilization jumped, and as an example annual per capita energy consumption increased by about 170% during 1750's to 1850's in England (Wrigley 2010). As a result, the definition of a RE resource has evolved to incorporate the replacing period, such that the consumption rate of a RE should be slower than the rate of which nature can replace them, unless the gap can be filled by human activities. Introduction:The primary RE resource embedded non-RE sources, such as oil and minerals, which take millions of years to reform in the earth. Then earth can replace non-RE resources but at a meager pace.The above discussion denotes that even RE sources must be conserved to balance the speed with which humans deplete and nature replaces the lost energy (the process of recharging). The modern world is facing critical challenges to maintain the consumption pace and the recharging process balanced, since: 1-Development, especially from the economic perspective, is closely tied to energy use (Toman and Jemelkova 2003, Carley, Lawrence et al. 2011. Although developed regions have adjusted their dependency on energy use over the past years, the outlook still suggests a net increase in total energy demand for the upcoming decades (IEA 2019, BP 2020, EIA 2020). 2-Population growth leaves the replenishment of RE sources with an increasingly difficult task. This factor is evident in human's increasing footprint, which triggers the next challenge. 3-Environmental concerns and climate change. Climate change is a natural behavior of the earth, but human manipulations stimulate changes at a sweeping pace which endanger different biological species, including humans.Studies and statistics highlight that, during the period since 2010, we have been depleting natural resources about 20% faster than nature can recharge them (Maczulak 2009). That means humans need more than the size of 1.2 earths to support resource consumption at the current pace (Hibbitt 2004). This chapter reviews known RE resources to delineate a comprehensive mind map about RE resources and their variations. The very first RE type: the sun The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development GoalsThe sun is the mother of industrial era where energy resources, as the energy stored in fossil fuels, originally came from the sun.The use of solar as an emerging energy source began in the industrial era due to the fact fossil fuels originate from the sun. Although humans cannot reproduce the crude oil forming process in an economic manner, they put forward other ways to benefit from the ultimate source of energy, the sun. Nuclear fusion reactions produce electromagnetic radiation wherein hydrogen nuclei bind to form helium, thus, releasing energy. It is informative to know that only one part of 100 total parts forms energy whereas others form the helium. This small share...

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