Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind power, and hydropower. Bioenergy and geothermal power are also significant in some countries. Some also consider nuclear power a renewable power source, although this is controversial, as nuclear energy requires mining uranium, a nonrenewable resource. Renewable energy installations can be large or small and are suited for both urban and rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can move heat and vehicles efficiently and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, controllable renewable energy sources include dammed hydroelectricity, bioenergy, or geothermal power.
Renewable energy systems have rapidly become more efficient and cheaper over the past 30 years. A large majority of worldwide newly installed electricity capacity is now renewable. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, have seen significant cost reductions over the past decade, making them more competitive with traditional fossil fuels. In most countries, photovoltaic solar or onshore wind are the cheapest new-build electricity. From 2011 to 2021, renewable energy grew from 20% to 28% of global electricity supply. Power from the sun and wind accounted for most of this increase, growing from a combined 2% to 10%. Use of fossil energy shrank from 68% to 62%. In 2024, renewables accounted for over 30% of global electricity generation and are projected to reach over 45% by 2030. Many countries already have renewables contributing more than 20% of their total energy supply, with some generating over half or even all their electricity from renewable sources.
The main motivation to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels is to slow and eventually stop climate change, which is mostly caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. In general, renewable energy sources pollute much less than fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency estimates that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, 90% of global electricity will need to be generated by renewables. Renewables also cause much less air pollution than fossil fuels, improving public health, and are less noisy.
The deployment of renewable energy still faces obstacles, especially fossil fuel subsidies, lobbying by incumbent power providers, and local opposition to the use of land for renewable installations. Like all mining, the extraction of minerals required for many renewable energy technologies also results in environmental damage. In addition, although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. (Full article...)
The resulting dam would have created a lake roughly the size of Lake Erie, making it the largest human-made reservoir in the world. The plan for the dam itself called for a concrete structure 530 feet (162 m) high with a top length of about 4,700 feet (1,430 m). The proposed power facilities would have consistently generated between 3.5 and 5.0gigawatts of electricity, based on the flow of the river as it differs between winter and summer.
Though supported by many politicians and businesses in Alaska, the project was canceled after objections were raised. Native Alaskans in the area protested the threatened loss of nine villages that would be flooded by the dam. Conservation groups abhorred the threatened flooding of the Yukon Flats, a large area of wetlands that provides a critical breeding ground for millions of waterfowl. Fiscal conservatives opposed the dam on the grounds of its large cost and limited benefit to Americans outside Alaska. (Full article...)
"Wind power is widely seen as the source of renewable energy with the best chance of competing with fossil-fuel power stations in the near term." – The Economist Technology Quarterly, 12 June 2010, p. 12.
"In 2009, a total of 38,103 MW of new wind installations were recorded, with the total installed global wind power capacity now standing at 160 GW. This represents an increase in cumulative installations of 31%, and a 35% rise in the rate of annual installations. This was the fifth year in a row with record installations, albeit a slightly lower rate compared with the 42% achieved in 2008." – BTM Wind Market ReportRenewable Energy World, 20 July 2010.
Jeremy Leggett (born 16 March 1954) is a British social entrepreneur and writer. He founded and was a board director of Solarcentury from 1997 to 2020, an international solar solutions company, and founded and was chair of SolarAid, a charity funded with 5% of Solarcentury's annual profits that helps solar-lighting entrepreneurs get started in Africa (2006–2020). SolarAid owns a retail brand SunnyMoney that was for a time Africa's top-seller of solar lighting, having sold well over a million solar lights, all profits recycled to the cause of eradicating the kerosene lantern from Africa. He founded and is CEO of Highlands Rewilding, a pioneering nature-recovery company, from 2020 to present.
Leggett is winner of the first Hillary Laureate for International Leadership in Climate Change (2009), a Gothenburg Prize (2015), the first non-Dutch winner of a Royal Dutch Honorary Sustainability Award (2016) and the Blue Planet Prize (2025). He was once described in the Observer as "Britain’s most respected green energy boss." He is the author of five books: "The Winning of The Carbon War", an account of what he sees as the "turnaround years" in the dawn of the global energy transition, 2013–2015, with an update edition spanning 2016–2017, "The Energy of Nations" (2013), "The Solar Century" (2009), "Half Gone" (2005) and "The Carbon War" (2000). He writes occasional articles for national media and has lectured on business and society at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford (UK) and St Gallen (Switzerland). His vision is of a renaissance in civilisation aided or even triggered by renewable energy and nature restoration, and its intrinsic social benefits. (Full article...)
... that Selling Solar: The Diffusion of Renewable Energy in Emerging Markets, a 2009 Earthscan book by Damian Miller, argues that in order to solve the climate crisis, the world must immediately and dramatically accelerate the commercialization of renewable energy technology ? This needs to happen in the industrialized world, as well as in the emerging markets of the developing world where most future GHG emissions will occur.
Image 10Onshore wind cost per kilowatt-hour between 1983 and 2017 (from Wind power)
Image 11Seasonal cycle of capacity factors for wind and photovoltaics in Europe under idealized assumptions. The figure illustrates the balancing effects of wind and solar energy at the seasonal scale (Kaspar et al., 2019). (from Wind power)
Image 16Energy from wind, sunlight or other renewable energy is converted to potential energy for storage in devices such as electric batteries or higher-elevation water reservoirs. The stored potential energy is later converted to electricity that is added to the power grid, even when the original energy source is not available. (from Wind power)
Image 23Enhanced geothermal system 1:Reservoir 2:Pump house 3:Heat exchanger 4:Turbine hall 5:Production well 6:Injection well 7:Hot water to district heating 8:Porous sediments 9:Observation well 10:Crystalline bedrock (from Geothermal energy)
Image 24Global geothermal electric capacity. Upper red line is installed capacity; lower green line is realized production. (from Geothermal energy)
Image 27A turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield in the U.K. (2008). Even longer 2-piece blades are now manufactured, and then assembled on-site to reduce difficulties in transportation. (from Wind power)
Image 28Global map of wind speed at 100 meters on land and around coasts. (from Wind power)
Image 29World electricity production by source, 2000-2024 (from Wind power)
Image 30Wind turbines such as these, in Cumbria, England, have been opposed for a number of reasons, including aesthetics, by some sectors of the population. (from Wind power)
Image 32The Warwick Castle water-powered generator house, used for the generation of electricity for the castle from 1894 until 1940 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 33Hydro generation by country, 2021 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 34Electricity generation at Poihipi, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 39Museum Hydroelectric power plant "Under the Town" in Užice, Serbia, built in 1900 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 40Merowe Dam in Sudan. Hydroelectric power stations that use dams submerge large areas of land due to the requirement of a reservoir. These changes to land color or albedo, alongside certain projects that concurrently submerge rainforests, can in these specific cases result in the global warming impact, or equivalent life-cycle greenhouse gases of hydroelectricity projects, to potentially exceed that of coal power stations. (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 41Electricity generation at Ohaaki, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 42Parabolic dish produces steam for cooking, in Auroville, India. (from Solar energy)
Image 43Solar water heaters facing the Sun to maximize gain (from Solar energy)
Image 44Greenhouses like these in the Westland municipality of the Netherlands grow vegetables, fruits and flowers. (from Solar energy)
Image 45Acceptance of wind and solar facilities in one's community is stronger among U.S. Democrats (blue), while acceptance of nuclear power plants is stronger among U.S. Republicans (red). (from Wind power)
Image 46Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system – one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent.[needs update] (from Solar energy)
Image 47Distribution of wind speed (red) and energy (blue) for all of 2002 at the Lee Ranch facility in Colorado. The histogram shows measured data, while the curve is the Rayleigh model distribution for the same average wind speed. (from Wind power)
Image 57Electricity generation at Wairakei, New Zealand (from Geothermal energy)
Image 58Share of electricity production from hydropower, 2024 (from Hydroelectricity)
Image 59Installed geothermal energy capacity, 2023 (from Geothermal energy)
Image 60The Hoover Dam in the United States is a large conventional dammed-hydro facility, with an installed capacity of 2,080 MW. (from Hydroelectricity)
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