Portal:Renewable energy

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Introduction

Renewable energy (or green energy) is energy from renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human timescale. Using renewable energy technologies helps with climate change mitigation, energy security, and also has some economic benefits. Commonly used renewable energy types include solar energy, wind power, hydropower, bioenergy and geothermal power. Renewable energy installations can be large or small. They are suited for urban as well as rural areas. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification. This has several benefits: electricity can move heat and vehicles efficiently, and is clean at the point of consumption. Variable renewable energy sources are those that have a fluctuating nature, such as wind power and solar power. In contrast, controllable renewable energy sources include dammed hydroelectricity, bioenergy, or geothermal power.

Renewable energy systems are rapidly becoming more efficient and cheaper. As a result, their share of global energy consumption is increasing. A large majority of worldwide newly installed electricity capacity is now renewable. In most countries, photovoltaic solar or onshore wind are the cheapest new-build electricity. Renewable energy can help reduce energy poverty in rural and remote areas of developing countries, where lack of energy access is often hindering economic development. Renewable energy resources exist all over the world. This is in contrast to fossil fuels resources which are concentrated in a limited number of countries.

There are also other renewable energy technologies that are still under development, for example enhanced geothermal systems, concentrated solar power, cellulosic ethanol, and marine energy.

From 2011 to 2021, renewable energy grew from 20% to 28% of global electricity supply. Use of fossil energy shrank from 68% to 62%, and nuclear from 12% to 10%. The share of hydropower decreased from 16% to 15% while power from sun and wind increased from 2% to 10%. Biomass and geothermal energy grew from 2% to 3%. In 2022, renewables accounted for 30% of global electricity generation, up from 21% in 1985.

Many countries around the world already have renewable energy contributing more than 20% of their total energy supply. Some countries generate over half their electricity from renewables. A few countries generate all their electricity from renewable energy. National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the 2020s and beyond.

The deployment of renewable energy is being hindered by massive fossil fuel subsidies. In 2022 the International Energy Agency (IEA) requested all countries to reduce their policy, regulatory, permitting and financing obstacles for renewables. This would increase the chances of the world reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. According to the IEA, to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, 90% of global electricity generation will need to be produced from renewable sources.

Whether nuclear power is renewable energy or not is still controversial. There are also debates around geopolitics, the metal and mineral extraction needed for solar panels and batteries, possible installations in conservation areas and the need to recycle solar panels. Although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. For example, some biomass sources are unsustainable at current rates of exploitation. (Full article...)

Tesla, Inc. (/ˈtɛslə/ TESS-lə or /ˈtɛzlə/ TEZ-lə) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas, which designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.

Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. In February 2004, Elon Musk joined as the company's largest shareholder and in 2008 he was named CEO. In 2008, the company began production of its first car model, the Roadster sports car, followed by the Model S sedan in 2012, the Model X SUV in 2015, the Model 3 sedan in 2017, the Model Y crossover in 2020, the Tesla Semi truck in 2022 and the Cybertruck pickup truck in 2023. The Model 3 is the all-time bestselling plug-in electric car worldwide, and in June 2021 became the first electric car to sell 1 million units globally. In 2023, the Model Y was the best-selling vehicle, of any kind, globally.

Tesla is one of the world's most valuable companies in terms of market capitalization. In October 2021, Tesla temporarily became a trillion dollar company, the seventh U.S. company to do so. In 2023, the company led the battery electric vehicle market, with 19.9% share. Also in 2023, the company was ranked 69th in the Forbes Global 2000. , it is the world's most valuable automaker. (Full article...)
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  •  "Ethanol creates U.S. jobs, cleans the air, strengthens national security – and best of all, it is here right now. Every day, ethanol producers are developing technological improvements to increase efficiency, reduce water use, and boost the amount of energy derived from corn kernels or from cellulosic biomass. Ethanol is not a 'someday' fuel. It is the renewable, clean-burning alternative we have to gasoline today."
"Moreover, advancements in ethanol production are quickly opening the door for the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels."

Ethanol is Here Today Renewable Energy World, 19 August 2010.

Main topics

Renewable energy sources

General

Renewable energy commercialization · Smart grid · Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020–present

Renewable energy by country

List of countries by electricity production from renewable sources

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Tokai University's solar car "Tokai Challenger", the winner of 2009 Global Green Challenge.
Tokai University's solar car "Tokai Challenger", the winner of the 2009 World Solar Challenge in Australia.

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Chu in 2014

Steven Chu FREng ForMemRS HonFInstP (born February 28, 1948) is an American physicist and former government official. He is a Nobel laureate and was the 12th U.S. secretary of energy. He is currently the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. He is known for his research at the University of California, Berkeley, and his research at Bell Laboratories and Stanford University regarding the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, for which he shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips.[ambiguous]

Chu served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, Chu was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level. Chu resigned as energy secretary on April 22, 2013. He returned to Stanford as Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology. (Full article...)

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... that The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity, the 2007 book by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, argues that commercializing clean technologies is a profitable enterprise that is moving steadily into mainstream business ? As the world economy faces challenges from energy price spikes, resource shortages, global environmental problems, and security threats, clean technologies are seen to be the next engine of economic growth.

Pernick and Wilder highlight eight major clean technology sectors: solar power, wind power, biofuels, green buildings, personal transportation, the smart grid, mobile applications (such as portable fuel cells), and water filtration. Very large corporations such as GE, Toyota and Sharp, and investment firms such as Goldman Sachs are making multi-billion dollar investments in clean technology.

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