The currents of the changing times.
Over the years, the continuing shift towards renewable energy has gone from something of a distant goal to something that is both easy to integrate and highly efficient. However, the biggest obstacle in this process seems to be our own reluctance to understand the full scope of the term and the many benefits that we can reap from it. So let’s try and quickly demystify some of the broader notions that the everyday consumer tends to think about when they think about the term ‘renewable energy‘ and how it affects us on a daily basis.
When most people consider renewable energy, they tend to picture large, slow-turning wind turbines, massive hydroelectric plants and rows upon rows of solar panels out in the wilderness somewhere scenic. However, this is a picture of the world that we have started realizing is not allowing us to really grasp just how integratable the technology actually is – and what the truer potential it has for overall power supply whether it’s house to house or even on a larger, industrial scale.
While it may be true that renewable energy tends to work best en masse, the truth is that many of the basic forms of technology that we’ve encountered of this sector have never been truly investigated and their mass market viability on a consumer level has never actually been tapped into.
While large companies are pushing to enable people the ability to generate power from and with their own homes, many people (manufacturers and consumers alike) are still unaware of just how many products could be easily sold to the mass market and help to keep the lights on, the laptops charged and the bills down without the need for a new roof, a huge field or the support of your local government and funds from major financial investors. Yes, the everyday person can and does want this – but other than a standard fuel generator, what do most people consider when they imagine needing remote power in a stable and simple machine?
While it may be true that gasifiers, hydrogen generators and solar pannels don’t always seem like the logical go-to for a quick, efficient, eco-friendly and cost-effective solution to most of us – but that’s only because as consumers, our ignorance (and I mean that in the best of ways) has a huge effect on the choices we are both able to make and the technology we chose to realize or enable. While this principle of applied ignorance may have worked in the 70s or 80s before we had the choices we’re now dealing with (after the great industrial hangover), as consumers it now makes so much more sense to not only get the best value for money, but chose the option that is both cleaner and allows for greater independence.
Societies tend to expect that the captains of industry, government leaders or other positions of power are the ones who are meant to fix the world that we live. However, the truth is that this ‘desire to expect’ is the very thing that pre-emptively shuts down our capacity as individuals to tick greater social maladies as well as build the kind of world we (the majority) would prefer to live in – simply because it’s a pretty good measure of the kind of society your living in (at the very least).
But yes, as we move boldly into the unknown, it is to innovate and improve the present rather than wanting to have to rely on falling back on a series of ideals that only detracts and destroys our window for a future while conscientiously using ignorance as a shield to ruin the present. Biofuel is the breath of air we might all need, and the change of perspective we’ve all been trying to formulate in our minds but can often only represent in fleeting images in magazines or on movie screens.
