This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels

Issue : Renewable Energy

 

This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.

 

Definition

TH- World

Subsidise – incentivize the companies and governments participating in sth and encourage them

Renewable energy – energies like nuclear or solar or wind

Wean off- get rid off sth while having some kind of alternative

Prop.

 

u  World Future

è   Big necessity of pulling down CO2 emissions

ü   Must reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 in order to avoid dangerous risks to the environment and ourselves

è   Cleary, fossil fuels are one of the biggest factors that triggered this urgency

ü   Continuous use of fossil fuels will bring catastrophic results

è   Carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems (Which are currently utilized in this era of fossil fuels) cannot do the job.

ü   They may reduce direct emissions from coal and gas plants by nearly 90%, but other steps in the supply chain would increase these emissions several-fold.

ü    For example, large amounts of methane are released whenever coal is mined or oil fields are developed On a life-cycle basis, most of our coal and oil consumption will need to be replaced by something else.

u  Availability of Renewable Energy

è   Nuclear Power

ü   Without the massive amount of energy that nuclear power plants provide, humanity have and will be able to last its existence

è   Wind and solar power

ü    These have life-cycle carbon emissions 90-98% lower than today's fossil-fuel plants.

ü   Wind power is available on the same scale as our electricity demand

ü   Solar power could meet our demand nearly 1,000 times over.

u  Bright future of Renewable energy

 

è   Economically

ü   Renewable power is poised to become the next new trillion-dollar industry, and the countries that grow strong in this area will gain the most in employment and GDP.

²    creates more jobs than fossil fuels

è   Price of Renewables

ü    Utilizing external incentives.

A.    One option would be a carbon-focused policy, such as a carbon tax or emission-trading system.

B.    Crystallise our willingness to pay for renewable energy in a form that project developers can literally "take to the bank".

 

Opp.

 

u  Inferiority of Renewable energy

è   Great Hinderances of Renewables

ü   Wind power: not industrial-grade energy

²    Cannot be efficiently transferred for the machines and factories

ü   Wind power: land-constrained

²    Highly depends on land situation – limited amount of production

ü   Biomass: land limited

²    Also way too depending on land situations

ü   "We cannot revert to timber fuel, for 'nearly the entire surface of our island would be required to grow timber sufficient for the consumption of the iron manufacture alone”

è   Hydropower: unreliable

ü   Too much depends on water situations & there are so little amount of places that satisfies the requirements of Hydropower

è   everything depends upon local circumstances.

ü   For instance, many streams and rivers only contain sufficient water half the year round and costly reservoirs alone could keep up the summer supply.

 

u  Contradicts to Market economy

è   Let consumers determine winners and losers.

ü   Wind and solar, in particular, cannot power a modern society and require fossil-fuel blending to play even a limited role. IF this is true, consumers will not buy them anyways.

ü   Same if fossil fuels are the ones that are inferior

è   Additionally, the alleged market failure of fossil fuels should be revisited in the light of the economic failure and government failure associated with coercive energy planning.

è   Efficient energies are those naturally chosen by consumers who know their needs better than an intelligentsia and/or central planners.