Everything, no matter how great it is, will always have its naysayers. Some people thought the internet was a novelty, and look at where we are today. Electric and hybrid cars initially faced the same opposition, but more and more people have opted for efficient vehicles over the years.
If you ever find yourself in a debate about renewable energy with someone who needs to brush up on their education, do your part for the environment by serving up the facts.
1. Renewable Energy is Expensive
This argument is only a surface truth. For a large household or small business to switch entirely to renewable energy can actually be expensive at first. There’s a lot of equipment to buy, and you need to pay someone to install it. The reality of the matter comes slightly down the road, where you never see another power bill again. If you make an excess amount of energy, you might even be able to sell it back to the power company. It’s an upfront cost that allows you to drastically cut your expenses indefinitely, essentially paying for itself.
2. Renewable Energy Takes Up a Lot of Space
If you have a small roof or a small yard, people might have told you that you’ll never be able to fit solar energy equipment on your property. Even if you can’t, look at a land for sale in your neighborhood. If your neighbors are interested in going green, you might be able to go in together to buy a plot of land and build a large solar farm you can share. Many properties can benefit from a single, reasonably sized solar farm. Not everyone needs their own vast swath of land.
3. Renewable Energy Isn’t Necessary
Renewable energy is called renewable energy because it doesn’t come from a finite resource. When we’re out of things like fossil fuels, we’re never getting any more. Renewable energy allows us to power our lives without depleting anything. We don’t need to make power – we can just make receptacles for the free, unlimited energy that already surrounds us. When you think about it, it’s almost like wasting energy if we don’t harness it.
4. Renewable Energy Isn’t As Efficient
There was a time when a horse-drawn carriage was the most efficient way to travel. Then we got cars, and we all started speeding around. Renewable energy is only as powerful as the sun and the wind, but how weak can someone perceive those sources to be? The sun makes all the plants grow and makes us sweat buckets on a hot summer day. The wind can uproot trees and destroy buildings at its fiercest. Since these are natural forces, we don’t need to do anything to make them work.
A UK based study on renewable energy actually found that it was significantly more efficient than traditional energy sources. Since it generates virtually no waste heat, where most other energy sources can generate more than half of their production in waste heat, it’s safe to conclude that using the energy we already have in our atmosphere can be more than twice as efficient.
5. Renewable Energy is a Fad
“This too shall pass” is a mantra you should use when you’re going through a difficult time, not when you’re making an active effort to preserve the planet. Renewable energy use is steadily growing, and it shows no signs of stopping any time in the near future. Huge businesses are making the switch to complete renewable energy every day. The progress isn’t slowing, and in the coming decades, projections show just what a rival to traditional energy renewable sources will become.
Varying projections that entertain different scenarios assume that by the year 2050, anywhere between 27% and 77% of energy growth will come from renewable sources. Even if you only entertain the most conservative of suggestions, that’s still more than a quarter of new energy becoming green. With the most optimistic projections, it’s the most energy. The truth remains somewhere in between, but the numbers are too significant to dismiss.
In short, people who are picking arguments against renewable energy have set themselves up for a losing battle. The facts just aren’t on their side, and we learn a little more to support the idea of a renewable energy transition every day. Even if you don’t want to have that debate, time will have it on your behalf.
