College Research

With that that in mind, the different sources of renewable energy are more scarce then led on, which makes them unable to satisfy the Earth’s needs. For example, wind occurs sporadically and even when there is a strong wind the energy produced is not enough. Fitzsimmons demonstrated that during the polar vortex, a period of cold powerful wind starting at the Earth’s pole, Texas was being affected with high winds; still, the Institute for Energy Research reported that wind energy was at a mere 17 percent from its total capacity during that time (par. 10). Activists will still argue that places with high winds show how wind can satisfy needs. The combined efforts of the World Wildlife Fund, Ecofys, and Office for Metropolitan Architecture stated that wind capacity is increasing and quadruple in the last couple of years, and they praise how Denmark’s wind energy can be accounted for 20 percent of their total energy production (par. 28). However, the company's statement of how well wind turbines are performing is not correct. In truth, wind still does not produce enough energy in any location. As Ted Trainer wrote, “The Germans with far more wind mills than any other country, and the Danish with the world's highest ratio of wind output to electricity consumption, have run into problems ‘integrating’ wind into the grid while wind is supplying only about 5% of demand” (par. 8). Even the top location with wind power barely produce any amount of energy, so is not possible for windmills to produce energy for any country. With wind not able to meet demand, many might look into solar power or nuclear power to meet demands.

Similarly with wind power, sun and nuclear power are considered able to meet demands, but this is still incorrect. The sun shines many hours in a day, shines every day, and produces massive amounts of energy; however, the amount that any company obtains and are able to store can not supply enough energy to be of any real value. Shwartz reported there is research that demonstrated solar panels, or solar photovoltaic, are making more power than it takes to make the panels work (par. 4) There is a possibility that solar energy does produce more power but this still does not upset the negative. Even if solar energy produces more power, companies can not store enough power.  Shwartz also stated that the same research also displayed the industry can only pay to store up to a full day, 24 hours, of energy (par. 9), and researcher done by Ker Than predicts that solar energy will account for only 5 percent of the total power if the amount of generators do not increase (par. 13).  Even with solar power able to to produce more energy, the available power that can be stored and used is very limited. By the same token, nuclear energy cannot be used to reach demands as supporters might say other wise. Trainer insisted that “[Nuclear power] offers a compact source of clean, dependable energy so enormous as to be essentially unlimited, but only if we have the will and ambition to exploit it” (par. 23). Here he states that nuclear power is an unlimited source of power that we can tapped into.  While Trainer is right about wind power, he is only partially correct about nuclear power. According to Squassoni, the International Energy Agency predicts that the amount power that nuclear energy contributes is decreasing from 15 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2030 (par. 3). As of today, many nations do not rely on nuclear power much and this is only going to decrease as the years go by, so trying to make nuclear energy reliable is a lost cause. Even with all the benefits that all three source of energy have, they have many problems that does not allow them to fill any energy demands.