Renewable Energy Resources and their Limitations

Curiosity and desire have led man to the peak of material progress. Discontent has always prompted him to change his environments and living conditions. Change is fundamental law of life for no change no progress. The more the peoples of the world have tried to change and ameliorate and better their lot, the more they succeed. The magic wand behind the spectacular and sustained progress has been the scientific technology. When we survey the achievements of men in their historical perspective; we get a clear idea about technological development from the earliest days from simple to sophisticated.

The Present era is the era where energy is the basic resource which is essential for living. The present age can easily be termed as Fossil Fuel Age (Hogan,1982) because 93% of the total world’s energy comprised of oil, coal and natural gas, this is surprising because only a century and a half ago the figures were reverse. Fossil fuel provides only 5% of energy while the animals and humans supplied 94% of it (Grubb et. al., 2006).

This extensive usage of fossil fuel seriously endangers the environment of our planet. Everyone is desperately trying to devise such energy resources that can not only save the planet from plunging deep into the pit of destruction and catastrophe but also will be more feasible economically.

It has been discovered that United States of America, whose population is just 6% of the total population of the world, consumes almost one third of world’s total energy resources (Reddy et. al., 1989). However, Energy resources are not infinite. In fact we are consuming the energy with such a pace that it has been estimated that world would be facing energy crisis after 2030.

Significant progress has been made all over ...

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...ive strategy for sustainable development it is necessary that flexibility and forward thinking must be considered. It looks obvious that only such countries will survive in this turmoil who are prepared for the future.

The major step of the strategy is to continue to reduce pollution and seek energy saving on the cost efficient basis. For this purpose we have discussed the economic and environmental aspects of different energy resources.

As far as the renewable energy resource for future use is concerned, liquid hydrogen seems the most appropriate choice. Although hydrogen when used as a fuel does release environmental pollutants, but their emission is about one-third times less than that produced by gasoline. Hence, based on the comparative analysis, hydrogen is much superior in terms of quality, cost and efficiency than other energy resources (Sorenson 2005).