Renewable energy if harnessed at a large scale could be the most lucrative source of energy as it has fewer drawbacks to the natural environment. Such can be derived from sources such as the sun, wind, hydroelectricity, plants and geothermal. This would imply the limited use of oil and coal which overly pollute the environment causing the greenhouse effect and the political implications such as armed conflict over oil. In modern day, it is impractical for an entire city to rely solely on only renewable energy for a couple of reasons.
Large Initial Capital Investment
The cost of running such a project once it is set up is far much cheaper than the options available today, but the capital required to set up the power plants is relatively high. This has edged out significant investors in the power industry under the pretext that the technology to sustain large-scale harnessing of renewable energy is too costly. Unless such an operation is subsidized, renewable energy remains a prospect for modern life.
Site Management
Most non-renewable sources of energy are centrally situated hence localizing energy operations. This has the implication that only a few power stations are required to deliver a significant output making it very convenient for power companies. Renewable sources require a decentralized operation making it a stretched out affair which increases the cost of sitting and transmitting the energy over many sources.
Market forces
Setting up a large-scale plant to supply a sustained source of renewable energy would face much resistance from the century-old nonrenewable energy industry dominating today. There exists a multimillion dollar industry that would run losses if the renewable energy industry is set. Owing to this the current sector will run bottlenecks and bureaucratically restrict the entry of renewable energy based industry into the market.
Dependability
There is also the question of how reliable these natural sources can be considering that they are dependent on physical factors that are impossible to manipulate artificially. For a large scale operation such as powering a city power disruptions could be rampant which would make this project not viable in our modern cities which demand substantial power units daily.
Works Cited
Armaroli, Nicola, and Vincenzo Balzani. “The future of energy supply: challenges and opportunities.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition 46.1‐2 (2007): 52-66.
Olah, George A. “Beyond oil and gas: the methanol economy.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition 44.18 (2005): 2636-2639.
Weitemeyer, Stefan, et al. “Integration of Renewable Energy Sources in future power systems: The role of storage.” Renewable Energy 75 (2015): 14-20
