Supporting information
Energy powers up our society
Our society relies on energy. Every day, we use energy for cooking, lighting, heating, warm showers and so on. We use electricity to power our light bulbs, charge our phones and tablets, make the escalators and elevators go up and down, make a phone call; you name it! In order to have all this energy at our disposal, we need to generate the energy. For electricity, this is done in power plants. There are different types of power plants: coal, nuclear, solar, wind; just to name a few. During the last century, our societies relied mainly on coal power plants. The downside of this type of energy generation is that a lot of smoke is produced during the burning of the coal: harmful smoke. The smoke that is released during power generation is harmful to the environment and, in the end, to us. The smoke contains so-called greenhouse gases (GHGs) and they contribute to global warming.
The coal used in a coal power plant is called a fossil fuel (because coal is, just like oil, old as fossils: it was formed millions of years ago in the earth's crust). When we take coal out of the earth, it doesn't magically regenerate there: the amount of coal available becomes less and less over time. This is a second downside of using fossil fuels for energy generation.
Sustainable energy
If we want to keep the climate here on earth nice and stable, we have to stop global warming from happening: but at the same time, we need to generate energy to power our society. Luckily, scientists have found ways to generate energy without emitting GHGs: we call this kind of energy sustainable energy. We call it sustainable because in theory, you can not run out of the energy source for generation (unlike coal, for example). Sustainable energy can be harvested from solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, biomass combustion, geothermal energy and ocean energy. In the following text, we'll highlight the two most known sustainable energy sources: solar and wind energy.
Solar energy
Every day, the earth receives the same amount of energy in the form of solar rays as the world population uses in a year year! This tremendous amount of free energy makes the sun the most abundant energy source for our planet. The reason that we are not yet using this to its full potential is because our solar cell collectors, which capture energy from the sun, can not turn all that solar energy into electricity. This is because of multiple reasons:
-the capacity of the solar panels: they can't capture all of the energy in the sunrays coming in.
-the global position of the solar panels: some places have more hours of sunshine than others.
-not all the land area can be covered with solar collectors.
Nonetheless, there is a huge potential in solar energy. As technology advances, the capacity of solar panels becomes becomes better as well. It is important to position solar farms in the right areas of the world: preferably the areas where you get the most sunshine. In the picture below you can see the areas in the world where the sun shines the most and most intense (dark red).
Our society relies on energy. Every day, we use energy for cooking, lighting, heating, warm showers and so on. We use electricity to power our light bulbs, charge our phones and tablets, make the escalators and elevators go up and down, make a phone call; you name it! In order to have all this energy at our disposal, we need to generate the energy. For electricity, this is done in power plants. There are different types of power plants: coal, nuclear, solar, wind; just to name a few. During the last century, our societies relied mainly on coal power plants. The downside of this type of energy generation is that a lot of smoke is produced during the burning of the coal: harmful smoke. The smoke that is released during power generation is harmful to the environment and, in the end, to us. The smoke contains so-called greenhouse gases (GHGs) and they contribute to global warming.
The coal used in a coal power plant is called a fossil fuel (because coal is, just like oil, old as fossils: it was formed millions of years ago in the earth's crust). When we take coal out of the earth, it doesn't magically regenerate there: the amount of coal available becomes less and less over time. This is a second downside of using fossil fuels for energy generation.
Sustainable energy
If we want to keep the climate here on earth nice and stable, we have to stop global warming from happening: but at the same time, we need to generate energy to power our society. Luckily, scientists have found ways to generate energy without emitting GHGs: we call this kind of energy sustainable energy. We call it sustainable because in theory, you can not run out of the energy source for generation (unlike coal, for example). Sustainable energy can be harvested from solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, biomass combustion, geothermal energy and ocean energy. In the following text, we'll highlight the two most known sustainable energy sources: solar and wind energy.
Solar energy
Every day, the earth receives the same amount of energy in the form of solar rays as the world population uses in a year year! This tremendous amount of free energy makes the sun the most abundant energy source for our planet. The reason that we are not yet using this to its full potential is because our solar cell collectors, which capture energy from the sun, can not turn all that solar energy into electricity. This is because of multiple reasons:
-the capacity of the solar panels: they can't capture all of the energy in the sunrays coming in.
-the global position of the solar panels: some places have more hours of sunshine than others.
-not all the land area can be covered with solar collectors.
Nonetheless, there is a huge potential in solar energy. As technology advances, the capacity of solar panels becomes becomes better as well. It is important to position solar farms in the right areas of the world: preferably the areas where you get the most sunshine. In the picture below you can see the areas in the world where the sun shines the most and most intense (dark red).
Wind energy
Energy from wind is kinetic energy, which means it's energy in the form of movement: wind is moving air. Wind energy has been harvested by humans for centuries with the help of windmills. Back in the olden days, we used it to pump up water, process grains to make flower and to put machinery in motion. Nowadays, we use a windmill to generate electricity by rotating a big dynamo.
Wind parks are large groups of windmills put together. There are two types of wind parks: onshore (on the land) and offshore (out on the sea). Offshore wind parks usually generate more electricity than onshore, but as you can imagine it costs more money to build a park out on sea. That's why you can find wind parks both on land and sea: next to wind conditions, it has to do with how much it costs to build it somewhere.
Which one is better?
So which renewable energy source is better: solar or wind? Well, it depends. In regions with lots of wind but little sunshine, it's logical to go with wind energy. The opposite is true for areas with lots of sunshine and little wind. But as you can imagine, solar energy can only be collected during the daytime when the sun shines, not at night. Likewise, wind energy is only harvested when the wind blows. We use way less electricity during the night than during the daytime. The upside for wind energy is that it also generates electricity during the night whereas solar does not: therefore, it is likely that the future energy mix (all energy from all different sources combined, making up the total amount of energy generation) won't be made up by only solar or only wind energy, but probably a combination of the two.
How are we doing so far
At this point you might be wondering how well we are doing with the amount of renewable energy in the energy mix. In Europe, it is going in the right direction: in 2004 the amount of renewable energy in the mix was only about 8%, but in 2016 it was already 17% [1]. Furthermore, the 2030 Paris Agreement has set a goal for all the countries that are part of the European Union to reach a share of 30% of renewable energy by the year 2030. In the picture below, you can see how the countries in Europe were doing in 2016.
Energy from wind is kinetic energy, which means it's energy in the form of movement: wind is moving air. Wind energy has been harvested by humans for centuries with the help of windmills. Back in the olden days, we used it to pump up water, process grains to make flower and to put machinery in motion. Nowadays, we use a windmill to generate electricity by rotating a big dynamo.
Wind parks are large groups of windmills put together. There are two types of wind parks: onshore (on the land) and offshore (out on the sea). Offshore wind parks usually generate more electricity than onshore, but as you can imagine it costs more money to build a park out on sea. That's why you can find wind parks both on land and sea: next to wind conditions, it has to do with how much it costs to build it somewhere.
Which one is better?
So which renewable energy source is better: solar or wind? Well, it depends. In regions with lots of wind but little sunshine, it's logical to go with wind energy. The opposite is true for areas with lots of sunshine and little wind. But as you can imagine, solar energy can only be collected during the daytime when the sun shines, not at night. Likewise, wind energy is only harvested when the wind blows. We use way less electricity during the night than during the daytime. The upside for wind energy is that it also generates electricity during the night whereas solar does not: therefore, it is likely that the future energy mix (all energy from all different sources combined, making up the total amount of energy generation) won't be made up by only solar or only wind energy, but probably a combination of the two.
How are we doing so far
At this point you might be wondering how well we are doing with the amount of renewable energy in the energy mix. In Europe, it is going in the right direction: in 2004 the amount of renewable energy in the mix was only about 8%, but in 2016 it was already 17% [1]. Furthermore, the 2030 Paris Agreement has set a goal for all the countries that are part of the European Union to reach a share of 30% of renewable energy by the year 2030. In the picture below, you can see how the countries in Europe were doing in 2016.
Sources used:
1: Eurostat - statistics explained.
1: Eurostat - statistics explained.