Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
So the growth in renewables is mainly coming from the new renewable
energy sources from the sun, the ocean and, above all, wind. But this
growth has had to be government-supported in almost every instance.
The 27 member countries of the European Union
have set
themselves mandatory national renewable energy targets for 2020,
averaging out as a 20 percent renewable share of total EU energy.
Thirty US states
have differing “renewable portfolio standards”
that require a minimum (ranging from ten to thirty percent) of their
electricity to be renewably generated.
China has a 2006 Renewable Energy Law,
providing for the
compulsory connection of all renewable power plants to the grid and
the compulsory acceptance by utilities of all renewable power offered for
sale.
But why, you may well ask, should renewables need such support to
compete with and hopefully displace fossil fuels? The answer is that there
are some generic obstacles that renewables must overcome with regard
to fossil fuels - and before examining individual renewables it is worth
pointing some of them out.
Today, only 29 percent of Nepal's forest-cover remains. The main reasons for
deforestation there have been land clearings for agriculture, the demand for
timber and, especially, the need for firewood. About 87% of domestic energy in
Nepal is produced by firewood, used for cooking and, during winter, for heating.
