What is renewable energy?

Renewable energy is the term used to describe energy flows that occur naturally and continuously in the environment, such as energy from the sun, wind, waves or tides. Other sources of renewable energy that are usually classed as "carbon-neutral" include biofuel, biomass or bio-energy. Completing the picture we have hydroelectric, landfill gas and geo-thermal.

Of course, in order to be usable, renewable energy sources need to be converted into more useful forms of energy and in every case, some work (or carbon cost) is involved in doing that. The key for the Island's renewable energy strategy is to do this conversion the most effectively.

To be able to use wind power in the National Grid, backup power is needed to compensate for the highly variable nature of wind power. EON estimates this could be up to 60% to 80% of the wind turbine installed capacity, and that backup power is burning fossil fuels all the time. By comparison, the conversion of biomass into usable energy requires only around 5% of other power. So it is clear that there are far better ways to produce renewable energy than using the wind.

With such an array of potential energy sources available, it is more than puzzling to understand why, in the UK Government's own summary report on "Renewable Energy Awareness and Attitudes", they selected the questions that they did.

Of 12 questions used to survey around 2000 people in the UK:

  • 1 was about which renewable energy sources people had heard of
  • 1 was about the cost of renewable energy
  • 2 were about wind power
  • 4 were about whether there is support for the use of renewable energy
  • And 4 were about which media most influence people.
Not one question inquired about any other type of renewable energy source, not one question mentioned wind turbines and no option to express any opinion on other renewable energy options.

Even with a survey with a set of guiding questions, when asked "Based on everything you know about renewable energy, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is totally in favour, and 1 is totally against, how much are you in favour of renewable energy, as an alternative to fossil fuels such as coal and gas?

Only 69% expressed an opinion in favour of renewable over fossil fuels.