Full Title: The Economics of Renewable Energy
Author(s): David Timmons, Jonathan M. Harris, and Brian Roach
Publisher(s): Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE)
Publication Date: January 1, 2014
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The history of industrial civilization is a history of energy transitions. In less developed, agrarian economies, people’s basic need for food calories is provided through simple forms of agriculture, which is essentially a method of capturing solar energy for human use. Solar energy stored in firewood or other biomass energy meets other basic needs for home heating and cooking.
As economies develop and become more complex, energy needs increase greatly. Historically, as supplies of firewood and other biomass energy proved insufficient to support growing economies in Europe and the United States, people turned to hydropower (also a form of stored solar energy), then to coal during the nineteenth century, and then to oil and natural gas during the twentieth century. In the 1950s nuclear power was introduced into the energy mix.
Each stage of economic development has been accompanied by a characteristic energy transition from one major fuel source to another. Today, fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—are by far the dominant energy source in industrial economies, and the main source of energy production growth in developing economies (see Figure 1). But the twenty-first century is already seeing the start of the next great transition in energy sources—away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources. This transition is motivated by many factors, including concerns about environmental impacts (particularly climate change), limits on fossil fuel supplies, prices, and technological change.