• Question: Would we be able to survive solely using renewable energy

    Asked by Murray111 to Alan, Ciorsdaidh, Lauren, Leonie, Martin, Neil, Shuo on 8 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Neil Keddie

      Neil Keddie answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      Good question @Murray111! I think the answer (eventually) will be yes, but we are a long way off this at the moment. As renewable technologies improve (especially solar) we will have more energy available to us, but the key problem is how we can store it until we need it – I think that’s the problem we need to solve on a large scale.

      There are large electrochemical batteries the size of small power plants that can do this, but they are not mainstream yet. We can store energy by pumping water uphill into dams (power stations like Ben Cruachan have done this for years), and even by compressing air and storing it in giant tanks – but these methods are not that efficient either. If you could solve these problems, and make solar energy capture more efficient (it is only 1-3% efficient right now), you’d be there I think.

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      I agree with Neil… The problem currently with renewable energy is that often we can’t use the energy at the time it is produced or there isn’t enough production to meet demand at certain times of day. We need some way to store the energy to smooth out the ups and downs of renewable production. At the moment that is done using traditional power stations including nuclear power stations. But it may be possible to provide that load smooth by burning biomass or garbage; or by using excess renewable energy in combination with hydroelectric power or even using it to generate hydrogen.

    • Photo: Alan McCue

      Alan McCue answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      Really good question and answers already. Like the others say there are challenges but we are heading towards using renewables a lot more. We just need to become more cleaver at using this renewable resources.

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