Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat.

A renewable resource is a natural resource which replenishes to overcome resource depletion caused by usage and consumption, either through biological reproduction or other naturally recurring processes in a finite amount of time in a human time scale.

Rain is liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity.

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth.

The breakthrough in renewable energy - (vpro backlight documentary - 2016) by vpro documentary

Renewable energy often provides energy in four important areas: electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, and rural energy services.

Water heating is a thermodynamic process that uses an energy source to heat water above its initial temperature.

Transport or transportation is the movement of people, animals and goods from one location to another.

In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities.

Renewable Energy 101: Solar Power by Green Mountain Energy

Based on REN21's 2016 report, renewables contributed 19.2% to humans' global energy consumption and 23.7% to their generation of electricity in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

REN21, the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, is a global renewable energy multi-stakeholder policy network that provides international leadership for the rapid transition to renewable energy.

This energy consumption is divided as 8.9% coming from traditional biomass, 4.2% as heat energy, 3.9% hydro electricity and 2.2% is electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass.

Biomass is an industry term for getting energy by burning wood, and other organic matter.

Worldwide investments in renewable technologies amounted to more than US$286 billion in 2015, with countries like China and the United States heavily investing in wind, hydro, solar and biofuels.

A biofuel is a fuel that is produced through contemporary biological processes, such as agriculture and anaerobic digestion, rather than a fuel produced by geological processes such as those involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as coal and petroleum, from prehistoric biological matter.

A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases chemical or nuclear energy as heat or to be used for work.

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia.

Globally, there are an estimated 7.7 million jobs associated with the renewable energy industries, with solar photovoltaics being the largest renewable employer.

Photovoltaics is a term which covers the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry.

As of 2015 worldwide, more than half of all new electricity capacity installed was renewable.

Renewable energy resources exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries.

Rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency is resulting in significant energy security, climate change mitigation, and economic benefits.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time.

Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit the magnitude or rate of long-term climate change.

The results of a recent review of the literature concluded that as greenhouse gas emitters begin to be held liable for damages resulting from GHG emissions resulting in climate change, a high value for liability mitigation would provide powerful incentives for deployment of renewable energy technologies.

A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range.

In international public opinion surveys there is strong support for promoting renewable sources such as solar power and wind power.

Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics, or indirectly using concentrated solar power.

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample.

Wind power is the use of air flow through wind turbines to mechanically power generators for electric power.

At the national level, at least 30 nations around the world already have renewable energy contributing more than 20 percent of energy supply.

National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade and beyond.

Some places and at least two countries, Iceland and Norway generate all their electricity using renewable energy already, and many other countries have the set a goal to reach 100% renewable energy in the future.

The incentive to use 100% renewable energy for electricity, heating and cooling and transport is motivated by global warming, pollution and other ecological as well as economic and energy security concerns.

For example, in Denmark the government decided to switch the total energy supply to 100% renewable energy by 2050.

While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, where energy is often crucial in human development.

United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity.

Ban Ki-moon is a South Korean statesman and politician who is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation.

As most of renewables provide electricity, renewable energy deployment is often applied in conjunction with further electrification, which has several benefits: Electricity can be converted to heat, can be converted into mechanical energy with high efficiency and is clean at the point of consumption.

Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and is usually associated with changing over from another power source.

In addition to that electrification with renewable energy is much more efficient and therefore leads to a significant reduction in primary energy requirements, because most renewables don't have a steam cycle with high losses.

Renewable energy systems are rapidly becoming more efficient and cheaper.