Renewable Energy and Its Ethical Issues

THE POLITICAL AND ETHICAL CASE FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY John Twidell1 The Kyoto Protocol, the Bali Roadmap and countless other pronouncements demonstrate that economies must reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Churches of all denominations recognise their responsibility to join in such transformation. But how and with what alternatives? Yes, the efficient use of energy is essential, so decreasing energy consumption. Yet this alone is not sufficient, so, as fossil fuels reduce, one or both of renewable energy and nuclear power must increase. Are there ethical issues involved? This article argues for comprehensive and rapid increase in renewable energy. Renewable energy is obtained from the energy already passing in the natural environment as sunshine (solar), plant-photosynthesis (biofuels), wind, flowing water, waves, tides and geothermal heat (collectively called ‘renewables’). The word ‘renewable’ indicates that this energy-flow is not a ‘once-only’ resource, as with fossil fuel and nuclear. Renewables do not add to the long-term average heat leaving the Earth, nor introduce extra material to the environment as pollutant emissions. Commerce in renewables is increasing rapidly with proven technology, and now all governments state their commitment to increased renewable energy supply. For instance, new installations for wind power, solar power and biofuels are increasing exponentially at about 30% to 40% of capacity per year, with about 500,000 new jobs in Europe alone. A major difficulty with fossil fuels is the release of additional carbon dioxide (CO2) into the Earth’s atmosphere. Human existence depends on a climate with 0.03% atmospheric CO2, the concentration present before the Industrial Revolution when fossil-carbon remained sequestered naturally below ground. Now, the release of fossil-carbon has been the main cause of atmospheric CO2 concentration approaching 0.04%, so causing climate change. In contrast, biofuels contain carbon extracted from the...