• Question: To what extent do renewable energy sources help stop global warming (if at all).

    Asked by anon-177600 to Andrew, Becky, Daniel, Helen, Nicola, Urslaan on 19 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Urslaan Chohan

      Urslaan Chohan answered on 19 Jun 2018:

      Renewable sources of energy dramatically reduce the effects of global warming, and if used for long periods of time, can even start to reverse the damage. This is due to the natural repair of the ozone layer. There would be less pollution in the environment which drives the global warming in the first place (carbon dioxide).

    • Photo: Helen Littler

      Helen Littler answered on 19 Jun 2018:

      Urslaan has already answered it well but I thought I’d add my favourite energy source. As you might be aware, our demand for energy is not constant – it peaks at certain times of the day like when people get home from work and want to cook their dinner. Renewable energy sources like solar generate electricity throughout the day when we don’t need to use it. The solution is the electricity is used to pump water up hill to a reservoir during off-peak. At peak demand they use the water to generate electricity using turbines.

    • Photo: Daniel Marsh

      Daniel Marsh answered on 20 Jun 2018:

      Global warming has been greatly accelerated through the use of fossil fuels for energy production so using renewable energy sources instead will help to slow this process again and even lead to a reversal over a long time. At the moment all EU governments have targets to achieve for the amount of renewable energy we produce, for the UK it’s 15% by 2020, but we may not meet this target if we do not do more to promote new technology and stop fossil fuels being sold very cheaply.

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