What needs to be done to help us achieve a renewable energy future?

A full treatment of this issue is beyond the scope of this website. However, the information below touches on some of the issues involved. One barrier to the widespread implementation of renewable energy tactics is cost. Fortuntately, the cost associated with electricity generation utilizing renewables has been dropping in the last several years.

A Comparison of the Costs of Various Energy Sources - 1999

Energy Source	Average Cost per Kilowatt-Hour	Source of Data
Coal or Natural Gas	3 cents	Science 285:679
Photovoltaic Cells	20 cents	Science 285:679
Wind Turbines	5 cents	Science 285:679

Can market forces (related to such factors as mass production of alternative energy equipment, rising fossil fuel costs, diminishing fossil fuel supplies, and lowered access to fossil fuel deposits) continue to bring the costs of alternative energy sources down and bring their use into the mainstream? Or, will government need to become involved? Market forces have been a factor in the cost reduction for alternative energy technology to date. "Between 1975 and 1997, for instance, the price of a watt of solar cells dropped from $89 to $4.25 (in 1997 dollars) -- or 30 percent for every doubling in cumulative sales. At this rate, another 10-fold increase in cumulative sales would bring prices to $1 per watt, often considered the threshold for competiveness with coal and natural gas" (Roodman, 181). Some environmentalists argue that it makes good business sense for companies to position themselves to take advantage of the revolution toward environmental sustainability that must eventually ensue. However, it is unlikely that market forces alone will be sufficient. "The key to making that [revolution] happen is for governments to stop subsidizing environmental harm and start taxing it. That will translate environmental costs into the language of the market -- prices-- and help enforce the 'polluter pays principle,' which says that when people act in ways that hurt the environment, they should feel the costs of the damage they do" (Roodman, 171).

The governments of many European nations are already beginning to implement such a philosophy by taxing toxic waste production, water pollution, sulfur oxide emissions, carbon dioxide emissions, and ozone-depleting substances. Accompanying these increases in taxes on environmentally harmful activities have been decreases in personal income taxes. Thus, the net effect has been no increase in taxes. "It violates common sense to tax heavily the activities societies generally want [e.g. working to earn a living] while taxing lightly the activities they do not want " [e.g. polluting the environment] (Roodman, 173).

Concomitant with the increase in taxes on environmentally harmful activities, environmentalists urge governments to end their subsidization of the use of fossil fuels. "Globally, fossil fuel subsidies -- price supports, favorable tax rates, direct financial aid -- now total more than $120 billion a year... " (Dunn, 90).

Other suggestions include "zeroing in on results rather than prescribing solutions" (Roodman, 175). In other words, rather than regulating specific practices, governments should implement regulations mandating the desired outcome and allow business to do what it does best: find the most efficient way to get the desired result. Government also has a role to play in planning infrastructure for the new fuel sources and for funding renewable energy research, particularly in the early phases of the transition, before business sees such research as profitable. Check out this site to learn what research the government-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado is conducting.

International institutions such as the World Bank need to consider environmental sustainability as a critical criterion influencing their lending practices. This has not heretofore been the case. "According to the Bank's own figures, it has lent six times as much for fossil fuel projects as for renewable energy and energy efficiency since 1992....Moreover, the Bank still favors coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, much more than private lenders do, at roughly 40 percent of its energy portfolio compared with 20 percent for private lenders" (Roodman, 176.)

Implementing energy conservation measures and checking human population growth will also need to be part of the plan toward a sustainable energy future.

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