At this stage, if you don't believe in renewable energy sources; there's nothing more to say to you. Besides the fact of renewables being clean, the sources they use to obtain energy are free. The fact that the energy source is free alone should cause any country to change to renewables yesterday already, renewables should literally sell themselves, so what is stopping the transition? The change to renewables is happening but is it happening as rapidly as we'd like? There's also efficiency to think about when considering converting to renewables & renewable power potential maps to think about (maps that show which regions are best for which type of renewable energy) so we don't put wind turbines where there is no wind or solar panels where there is no sun.
I'm not a fan of coal or nuclear or even nuclear's more efficient cousin thorium because they have polluting residue to deal with & you have to pay for the source when wind & sunshine are free in the case of renewables. I'm also not a fan of hydropower or energy made by structures under the sea because these are not as reliable when water/salt water & underwater animals can cause damage to equipment that would be difficult to repair. And hydropower from rivers is unreliable from my perspective because rivers can change direction & simply dry up.
I've settled on these standard solutions to sort out South Africa &, possibly, the world's power problems:
• Decentralised energy projects: These can be power plants or companies for each city, suburb or region to prevent nationwide shutdown should a country's power plant become defective, as in the case of South Africa's dreaded loadshedding.
• Traffic created energy?: I just recently learnt of this myself but here is the video. I thought the best solution for traffic lights & streetlights would be small solar panels on each lighting unit but perhaps that wouldn't be such a great idea in urban areas where there are highrise buildings. So traffic lights powered by traffic going past are ideal for urban settings with many high buildings. See M. M.'s wind-powered car concept.
• Vertical wind turbine energy plants/farms: I'm not much of a believer in horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) because of many disadvantages they have. These being; they're too big, they require an extra mechanism to face the direction of the wind, they can't handle extreme wind speeds as seen in many videos going around social media & HAWTs require far more space apart in an energy farm than VAWTs. So, in my opinion, the more practical, pragmatic solution is the vertical wind turbine (VAWT) because it works at low wind speeds, individual VAWTs don't need to be spaced apart as much as HAWTs in large-scale energy production & can handle extreme wind speeds better than HAWTs. As a person who lives in a region with better wind potential than solar potential & the fact that it sometimes gets cloudy or the sun doesn't shine at night, wind turbines (VAWTs) have convinced me they are the best solution for all the reasons listed above. This accompanied with the fact the solar panels can shatter & degenerate more over time than mechanical turbines has left me believing in only one solution for large-scale energy production.
Sure, solar can be used in places with high solar power potential but adding to the fact that solar panels need minerals to be mined just makes wind an even better option. Perhaps, solar panels should just be left for electric vehicles & individuals who prefer solar panels than wind turbines for their homes for whatever reason.
These would be my objectives were I in charge of a country's energy supply. Thank you for reading.
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