Renewables: Pros & Cons

Alternative and Renewable Energy Pros and Cons: The List

As promised, a detailed list of pros and cons as mentioned in numerous posts.

Pros:

  • Cleaner air – less burning of fossil fuels and the greenhouse and toxic gasses that are then released
  • Cleaner land- less land pollution not caused by drilling, fracking, spilling, etc
  • Cleaner water-If the air gets cleaned through raining, where do you think all that stuff in the air goes? Plus all the water used in the front end when capturing fossil fuels, then during refinement/processing plus the systems to generate electricity as well.
  • Less dependence of foreign energy sources, which skews our worldview based on oil availability instead of what our values of right and wrong, justice and freedom really are
  • once the power plant (wind turbine, solar panels etc) is paid for, the fuel ( wind, sun, water) is free, with similar maintenance costs to fossil-fuel power plants(except for ocean sources). Somehow, this free fuel is never factored in to discussions of renewable energy costs versus dirty energy costs! That’s mostly because of tax breaks, direct subsidies and other government payouts and perks given to dirty energy industries and utilities so they don’t have to factor those costs the same way as renewable energy (usually) must.
  • The expansion of building and installing these renewable energy power plants down to home systems has the potential to generate a massive green energy economy. That is estimated to hold at least one half million jobs, and much more by some estimates. Solar already employs over 100,000 and accounts for less than 1% of all electricity. You could see if we decided to actually really make it a reality, 500,000 jobs would be very easy!
  • the money paid for the energy is not exported out of the country. If we send billions(trillions?) annually to foreign countries, that money is GONE from our economy forever. That is, unless you subscribe to “unlimited wealth available” philosophies.
  • That exported wealth can no longer come back to us as bombs, foreign takeover of our industries and technologies, and our economy being (more) influenced by foreign countries


Cons:

  • People will have to change
  • People will have to be accountable for their use(and waste) of resources and their share of the pollution made
  • changing over to renewable energy will reduce demand for fossil fuel, thus will be in a constant state of helping keep fossil fuels cheaper, making renewable energy actually compete with itself!

 

 

Your input is essential. Comment to suggest or add your prose and khans;

give your reasons, beliefs and disbeliefs to items on this list;

recommend, defend, or upend the status of exisiting items.

for example: maybe putting dirty energy companies out of business is just karma? … but then who is going to pay the bill for the mess they leave behind?