Talk:Renewable energy transition

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 30 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rnakovsk, Eb20, Gheraly. Peer reviewers: Obee14.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Suggestions

I think that the article and the topic are fruitful to understand humans need renewable energy systems to tackle GHS emission down. Nevertheless, I think the article needs a strong argument about why humans need a tradition from fossil fuel systems to renewable energy sources in the lead section. Also, other alternative renewable sources such as tidal energy sources should be researched and added to the article. Besides, I think that the article needs more videos, graphics, maps, and data to show the impacts of fossil fuels (CO2 and Methane gases). And the article needs to support case studies and IPCC reports for the benefits of renewable energy systems. bbakkal 05:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbakkal (talk • contribs)

This article so far has a good general outline of the dimensions of the renewable energy transition but definitely has room for improvement in terms of adding more detailed information. There isn't a lead section that provides a general overview of the subject and its importance which is an important part of a Wikipedia page. Additionally, I don't think the "Introduction" header is necessary, though the information underneath it is valuable.

As for the structure of the article, it is well done but the formatting itself of the different parts of the structure could use changing just for ease of viewing.

Content-wise, the sections on the different types of renewable energy could use some further expansion on the pros and cons of each individual type.

Keep up the great work! Obee14 (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

So far, this article is looking awesome. Content-wise, there are a few things that I think I might like to see added, however. I know this article isn't specific to any one nation or country, but I would like to see the addition of what kinds of policy decisions governments around the world might be making regarding such an energy transition. Perhaps a section might be added that mentions specific companies that are in the business of making renewable energy more available, such as SolarCity. Maybe also have a section about fossil fuel corporations and whether any of them are actively working for (i.e. through R&D, funding, etc.) or against a transition to renewables.--Brmbuck (talk) 20:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This article was a pleasant read and very informative about renewable energy. I especially liked the section on economics and I learned more about the global rivalries that go into renewable energy. For my edit, I added a section on biomass energy. This energy type isn’t as widely used as solar or wind, but it can be greatly beneficial for some areas. If you were to add to my section, I’d recommend adding a case study of an area that uses biomass energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lfabina (talk • contribs) 02:19, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

As a whole, this article was fascinating to read. I am very interested in renewable energy so this definitely sparked my interest. This article has a great outline however I think it falls short in a few aspects. Primarily, it seems to be very short and very broad. There is a lot of data and information about renewable energy from multiple academic sources which I think you aren't diving into as much as you should. For instance, in the section on "solar energy," you focus primarily on the negative drawbacks of transitioning to solar energy. While this is certainly a topic that should be mentioned, I felt as if the positives were unapparent if not completely ignored. This observation holds true for a lot of other sections in the article. When doing your next edit, I really suggest adding some of the positives affects of transitioning to renewable energy in the subsections. Furthermore, this article only had two images for this topic. There are a lot of great images out there of hydroelectric dams, geothermal energy systems and biofuel mechanisms which I believe you should add. Overall, this article had the best organization of any article I have revied on Wikipedia, although a lot of the information seemed scarce and rough around the edges. When you add some of these changes, this will be a great article and I'm looking forward to reading it in the future! James Iversen (talk) 03:06, 27 March 2020 (UTC)jiversen

I think it would be useful to include a subsection about biofuel and energies that derive from blue-green algae or corn. This is a really important aspect of renewable energy! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaymaranke (talk • contribs) 20:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review 2

Some things to consider: (1) changing introductory paragraph to introduce renewable energy transition, not renewable energy, (2) developing Transitions and Drivers sections since they are the crux of the article/topic, (3) developing Technologies section with more information and framing it, again, toward transitions, as much of what you currently have is already included in the renewable energy page. Possible questions to look into: What are the current adoption rates of these technologies in varying geographical contexts? What helps/hinders the adoption of renewable energies? Jkwasser (talk) 19:35, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The opening does a wonderful job of providing an overview of renewable energy by defining the term and introducing solar and wind energy. However, the introduction does not even mention the idea of transitioning to renewable energy. I think you need to define what this idea is and why it is important in that section. A good way of doing this may be including a bulk of the information under the “Transition to renewable energy” section in the introduction. You also offer a comprehensive view of the subject. I like that you touch on the social, business/economic, and legislative aspects. However, I think you can dive even deeper into some of these subheadings. For example, I think it would be helpful to discuss any impacts that federal legislation has had. Has the legislation met its goals or fallen short? Have there been any unexpected outcomes or obstacles? Two to three sentences addressing this would be more than sufficient. Additionally, I think you could expand substantially on the three economic aspects you listed. In fact, the energy market subheading does not make much sense to me. I think you need to start by defining what the energy market is, explain why it can be viewed as the “insurance policy” for renewable energy, and explore what the implications of improved cost efficiency have been. You should include at least one case study or anecdote to illustrate the point you are making in at least one of these three sections, although I think doing so could be useful in all three. Lastly, I would urge you to be more stringent about your use of citations. It appears that a large majority of the paragraphs on this Wiki page only have one citation included at the end. You should be citing each claim that you make, not lumping all the claims together behind one citation at the conclusion of a paragraph. In fact, you should be drawing from a wider variety of sources so that you can easily cite more than one source per paragraph/subheading. I also edited grammar throughout the page.I Have No Authority (talk) 03:15, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the comment above! This paper is really comprehensive and goes in-depth in different sections of the topic of renewable energy transition. I think with this topic something that could be helpful as to finding more references and claims is scaling down the scope of the topic. By adding subsections which show renewable energy transition in different parts of the world could help with backing up some of that information which isn't heavily cited. I also think just spending time expanding on each of the subsections within the types of technologies by including specific places or projects which have been worked on in the US which are representative of renewable energy transition. All that being said keep up the good work! I think it well organized the sections are easy to follow and flow well together! Ikigamwa (talk) 22:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions regarding 'Legislation' section

The legislation discussed in the section is all American legislation. The U.S. isn't the only country that is taking part in a renewable energy transition so a few suggestions/recommendations come with this fact.

1. Include "United States Legislation" in a subheader to be specific of the origin of the legislation and make sure it is noted that other countries are also taking steps.
2. It would be an impossible task to try to include every country's legislation regarding renewable energy and would just be so much information and not a lot of substance being taken away by readers. But it's important to remember Wikipedia is used by people all over the world and the section only mentions U.S. legislation so it might be worthwhile to justify why only the U.S. renewable energy transition legislation is noteworthy.
3. International legislation/reports/initiatives/goals could be valuable in this article. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 is "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all" which is just one example of international efforts regarding renewable energy transitions. (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Obee14 (talk • contribs) 01:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

More forms of renewable energy

Ocean/Tide (Kinetic)

This is an additional form of energy you did not state before but is rather simple as it consisted just of mechanisms in the oceans that utilize the kinetic energy creates from tidal waves.

Solar (photovoltaic AND Solar Thermal)

Photovoltaic is what we think of when solar panels are said. These are the panels we see consisting of solar cells that transform the photons from the sun into usable electric energy. The less common solar thermal energy is when we do not utilize the photons but rather the heat is either used directly (to heat the building for example) OR is converted into mechanical energy then into electricity. (this is called concentrated solar power or CSP)

Nuclear

Nuclear is still up for debate as to whether or not it counts as a "clean energy" or not as it creates waste but does not directly pollute the environment and does not rely on fossil fuels. I do think however that stating this would be beneficial to the reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:802:8380:D6D0:8FB:5649:90C5:2A0 (talk) 01:13, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal (June 2020)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was no consensus. GliderMaven (talk) 12:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

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I propose to merge 100% renewable energy into Renewable energy transition. I think that the content in the 100% renewable energy article can easily be explained in the context of the Renewable energy transition, and the Renewable energy transition article is of a reasonable size that the merging of 100% renewable energy will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. Chidgk1 (talk) 16:15, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This was a total joke. I have reverted it. You need other people's opinions on it. The previous review said no your single non admin opinioin is not sufficient to delete hundreds of people's work. GliderMaven (talk) 12:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Feasibility studies

@Reywas92: I am glad that you are looking at this article, which is rated top importance for the climate change project. I did actually merge everything from "100% Renewable Energy", as recommended in the merger guide. The text you have restored was some of what I deleted after the merge with the comment "Deleted as no longer recent and too detailed. If you think anything is still needed please summarize it". But having been unable to get consensus to merge this article and Energy transition I don't expect to do anything more on either of the articles, and leave it to you and others to decide how best to proceed.

@Elmidae: As you had ideas on the content of this article and Energy transition and wish to keep them separate perhaps you would like to do some editing on them?

Regards

Chidgk1 (talk) 06:30, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was no consensus. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

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I propose to merge 100% renewable energy into Renewable energy transition. I think that the content in the 100% renewable energy article can easily be explained in the context of Renewable energy transition, and the Renewable energy transition article is of a reasonable size that the merging of 100% renewable energy will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned.

As you can see above the previous merger and revert was not widely discussed. I will attempt to notify anyone who might be interested - please let everyone know - and will leave this open for at least a month in the hope that this time there will be a reasoned discussion. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:14, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. Both articles already have a reasonable digestible length, although 100% renewable energy is a disorganized mess with a lead that contains way too much detail. I'm all in favor of merging any content that overlaps or duplicates content in this article, but I believe that merging it completely would result in something too lengthy. More importantly, these are two distinct topics: One is about transition, and one is about the end-state. Therefore, instead of merging, I recommend striving toward a clean content fork, and include a summary paragraph of 100% renewable energy in this article. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:17, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Complete Oppose The title 'renewable energy transition' is extremely poor, as is the concept behind it. They are related but very different concepts, but 100% renewable energy is the one that has greater longevity and subsumes this one; but not the other way around. GliderMaven (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose there may be enough information to have a separate article on "100% renewable energy", as a subtopic of Renewable energy transition. The article can focus for example on the challenges of a system completely reliant on renewables (such as storage, etc.). However, as of now, both articles are a complete mess and there is a lot of work to be done to bring them to an acceptable quality level. --Ita140188 (talk) 03:00, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. It's entirely clear to me that we need to decarbonize the global economy by a substantial fraction (say 90%). But it's not clear to me that we need to take this to a completist 100% level. For example, it might prove simpler just to allow the airline industry to continue to burn fossil fuels in this one particular application, where fuel energy density is at a huge premium—so long as terrestrial transportation industry went to carbon zero. In a pragmatic world, this could be a reasonable balance between conflicting goals. For that reason, I would prefer to see the completist, utopian ideology of the 100% solution continue to occupy its own page. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 assures me that the completist sentiment of the 100% solution is as yet far from universally loved, and thus remains far from a certain future outcome. I completely disagree with a previous comment that the utopian 100% completist ideal subsumes the on-the-ground actual transition we are already witnessing; yes the 100% initiative is conceptually and arithmetically larger, but it might not become a real thing any time soon (i.e. the 100% can being kicked far downstream from 2050 by some future mixture of populists and pragmatists). — MaxEnt 05:55, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extrapolation fail

Nobody seems to get this point, but the commonly accepted industrial extrapolation does not necessarily apply to the renewable energy sector.

We've all be conditioned by industrial economics for so long that we fail to even notice this point. In industrial economics, scaling curves are are almost always monotonic decreasing (in the large). Furthermore, once technology improves and shifts the entire curve downward, then downward it usually stays (a strategic materials shortage can knock the curve upward again, but we actually haven't expercienced many of these despite all the gloomy predictions of the 1960s).

But with renewables, such as wind and solar, scaling in the large involves continuing to find suitable sites with comparable economics. However, economics is such that the best sites are cherry picked in the early stages: sites with the most sunshine, least inclement weather, and situated closest to large cities.

There's simply no automatic guarantee that the excellent sites we exploit now will continue to exist in future; and it's not impossible either that the crappiness of the future sites increases faster than the salaciousness of the new technology, causing the installed price to increase at some sufficient scale, rather than decrease uniformly as industrial economics has long conditioned us to expect.

And yet, we continue to see statements such as: the cost per MW of solar is now cheap enough that it makes no sense to continue to build $old_garbage. But actually we only know for certain that the cost per MW of solar on $cherry_picked_installation (as environmentally scaled) is now cheaper than a MW of power from $old_garbage (as industrially scaled).

If may be that some smart person has already looked into this, and we aren't going to run out of economically rosy cherry-picked locations any time soon. But if so, we should cite these studies, because it's a necessary support for a non-industrial claim of scaling virtuosity. — MaxEnt 06:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Beside space, bigger problems with scaling up renewables are storage (especially seasonal) and reliability. The costs of both go up extremely fast with increasing penetration of renewables in a grid. However, wiki talk pages are not really the place to have these discussions (see WP:FORUM). Talk pages should discuss how to improve the article. Do you have any specific change to suggest? --Ita140188 (talk) 11:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)