Future Energy Solutions for a Globalizing World

Future Energy Solutions for a Globalizing World
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Future Energy Solutions for a Globalizing World
The world stares at a probable energy crisis in the future due to the growing global demand for energy, its scarcity, and environmental concerns over the usage of conventional energy sources. Excessive combustion of fossil fuels now threatens not only the depletion of natural deposits of coal, oil, and gas but also the negative impacts of carbon emissions through global warming and climate change (Coyle & Simmons, 2014). Accordingly, there is widespread consensus among scientific communities as well as governments that climate change has been on an upward trend due to anthropogenic activities, especially concerning burning fossil fuels. Therefore, measures should be put in place to help reverse the undesirable global environmental disasters linked to the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Notably, arguments have been made in favor of greening economies by fully adopting renewable energy such as solar and wind power in the future (Terdiman, 2012). On the contrary, some people are of the view that no future energy threat is posed by the current use of fossils. In the foregoing, this paper looks into the future energy solutions for a globalizing world; putting into account the idea to switch to renewable energy sources and whether it’s the best way to go.
Today, the debate on which energy sources to use in the future is a pertinent issue. It follows that the 21st Century world is focused on reducing the usage of fossil fuels across the world. Some initiatives to this end include carbon capture and storage based on clean coal technologies which have been developed by scientists and engineers (Coyle & Simmons, 2014). However, questions still linger on whether such technological interventions can significantly reduce the growing carbon footprint in the globe. Moreover, the challenge is further complicated by the ever-growing global energy demand, huge economic investments needed to operationalize such technologies, as well as the race against time to reduce the environmental damage caused by the usage of fossil fuels. It is also noteworthy that fossil fuels still play a vital role in the provision of energy in the global energy mix thus switching to alternative energy sources is such a complicated process (Foster & Elzinga, 2013).
Verbruggen et al. (2010) opine that the biggest challenge for transitioning from non-sustainable energy to renewables is organizing the switch. Correspondingly, even if alternative energy sources become cheaper, the significant economic requirements for changing form the conventional sources may curtail such a move. It is also quite difficult to oversee a move from conventional energy sources to the renewables if a country’s policy and policy instruments are not favorable. Consequently, the undesirable policy environment is also likely to increase the cost of switching and affect the ability to develop necessary technological innovations (Owusu, & Asumadu-Sarkodie, 2016). Additionally, technological innovations can raise the cost of alternative energy thus leading to market failures as ...