The Case For Decentralized Generation Of Electricity

As the global population increases exponentially, having passed six billion in 1999, the world population is expected to be 8.9 billion by the year 2050. The worlds energy consumption will increase by an estimated 54 percent by 2025. Energy demand in the industrialized world is projected to grow 1.2 percent per year. Energy is a critical component of sustained economic growth and improved standards of living. One of the major requirements for sustaining human progress is an adequate source of energy. As the world’s technological enhancements and standards of living improve, so too does their appetite for electricity.

This article explained how electricity was generated in the early 1900s. Burning coal in the city centers produced electricity and also helped to heat buildings. Only people near from the city were able to use electricity because there was not way to transmit the electricity to rural areas. After a long time coal plants started to grew and people were facing difficulties because the coal plants occupied space and they also produced pollution to the city. People decided to move coal plants to the outside of the city in that way people would not be affected, they started to use transmission wires to carry electricity. Even though they did not have the same efficacy to obtain electricity they were finding a way to improve it. At the beginning of 1970 technology began to improve, so many mass-produce engines were produce and they can be located in the middle of the population, also decentralized plants were used to recycle the wasted heat. After all these benefits of the new technology, industry decided to make some changes. Electric monopolies started to charge people for the use of electricity. Later on, congress tried to open competition in 1978 and some independent power companies started to develop one site generation. This article was focused in a research on how to build new power generation providing technology, capital costs and fuel prices. After all of this significant and dramatic changes in electricity, United States was facing problems because the power industry

Benjamin K. Sovacool is the director Danish Center for Energy Technology at the Department of Business Technology and Development and focuses primarily on energy policy and environmental issues. He has explored numerous topics on the connection between energy systems and society and has provided numerous journals analyzing the future of

On the same note, the energy revolution spoken of above brings forth another advance in the ongoing global climate situation. The nature of the Kyoto Protocol calls for nations to increase research and eventually semi-convert their energy usage to accommodate for cleaner energy. Products such as solar power, wind power, biomass, geothermal power, and hydropower are now widely being studying to create processes that use less coal, oil, and natural gas in production. Altogether the results have

Currently, the energy (electricity generation) sector in Canada is facing a major crisis, which is the fear of running out of world’s natural resources to produce electricity. Even though the Canadian government is promoting renewable resources, it will take a long time to establish a network that is completely dependent on renewable resources. In the meantime, the population of Canada is growing drastically and cities such as Toronto is struggling to meet the rising demand for electricity due to urbanization.

Renewable energy has currently become a significant aspect in the countries generation, combination, and a constitution focus of government policy for energy, and environmental protection. As a result of public’s growing responsibility for the environment and constantly binding rules, and regulations of emission in the electric power industry, government has facilitated policies to boost the amount of renewable energy in the electricity generation portfolio. Additionally, the generation of electricity from renewable resources creates insufficient, and frequently, zero emissions of pollutants that comes from traditional fossil fuel production technologies. The additional use of renewable energy aids utilities in their emission agreement obligations. Furthermore, the anticipation of agreement with any future carbon emissions management would further toughen the incentive to move towards cleaner electricity creating technologies (Langwith, 2009).

Electricity can be generated from any source of energy which is available in abundance and can be used effectively.

In conditions when both technologies and our needs require more and more energy, it is impossible to count only on natural resources and to think that their reserves are unlimited. This is not true. We have learned to receive electricity from irreplaceable resources – oil, gas, also from replenished - water, wind, sun. But the energy of the sun or wind is not enough for today’s rythm of our civilization. And hydroelectric and thermal power plants are not as clean and economical for the modern rhythm

Here as well, an institutional problem particular to the U.S. has been an impediment for enacting smart renewable energy policies. Unlike Europe where the parliamentary systems allow the executives to have a majority of seats in the legislature branch, the U.S. system is known for being constantly governed by one party who controls one house of the U.S. Congress and the presidency and another party at the other house of Congress. This central schism in American politics has played an important role for national renewable energy policy because one party is generally opposed to government actions. Indeed, American politic history shows us how democrats generally seek to give cost-control power in the hands of centralized experts while Republicans are usually skeptical about experts ‘reliability.

With deregulation, consumers are now allowed to pick who the utility company purchases energy from. The utility company still owns the grids and still brings the energy to the building. The consumer can now choose which company based on lowest price. Competition within any industry drives prices down which means savings for the consumer and a more level playing field for up and coming producers.

Hydropower became the source of generating electricity in the late 19th century. Electricity generated by hydro power plants is simply

With American population expected to increase by approximately fifty percent over the next fifty years, some sort of energy reform is needed (Lehrman 2). The most commonly proposed idea is for America to stop relying so heavily on fossil fuels, and to turn its focus onto renewable sources of energy, such as solar power and hydroelectricity (Energy Information Administration). If the United States could realize the benefits of renewable energy, then much of the world’s energy problems could be solved.

In 1831, scientist Michael Farday discovered the first form of electricity. He found that when a magnet moved inside a copper coil it created what is known as an electric current. This invention is known as a turbine generator. Even today, in full sized power stations this simple invention is still used and works very effectively. These power stations create mass amounts of energy to turn the turbines. Most of the time the energy is made from the heat, for example when coal is burned. More environmentally friendly power stations use wind or flowing water to turn these turbines. This is known as renewable energy because it will not run out, unlike when oil and coal are used.(3)

By the late 1800s, the world’s first coal powered electric generator was made, the world’s first electric light was used, and the world’s first hydroelectric plant was utilized. A few years later a new type of fuel was becoming well-known, petroleum. Initially it had been an inconvenience for polluting water but by the end of the century oil, turned into gasoline, powered up engines. With the spread of economical gas cars and electricity, society’s energy use rapidly increased. Power plants became massive and power lines stretched out from hundreds of miles between cities, even during The Great Depression. After World War II, the use of energy was quickly doubling every 10 years and it concerned no one.

Energy is a critical component for every economy and society around the world. Energy is divided into two groups, nonrenewable (coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear) with a finite amount found around the globe and renewable (hydro, tidal, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass) that are constantly being replenished so that they will never run out (Green Energy Choice, 2011). The international economic impact of renewable energy is explored by examining subsidies, strategic policies, and comparative advantage of renewable energy.