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Funding of renewable energy based on environmental impact
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We have reached an age when renewable energy is primed to take over the throne of the energy-supply kingdom. The arguments for mining more coal and drilling more oil have been muffled by the demands for cleaner, more efficient sources of fuel and electricity. Of course, technological development must now catch up with ideas being tossed around in academic and scientific circles. As we idle anxiously in this development stage, certain questions ought to be addressed before moving forward. For starters, are all renewable sources of energy created equal?
Taken literally, the answer to this question is “No.” The amount of resources it takes to develop a viable energy supply from one renewable can far exceed that of another. Similarly, the infrastructure needed to support certain renewables can have a worse 
environmental impact than some fossil fuels. Albert Einstein once professed, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” In the process of trying to solve the energy issue, let’s not make the mistake of creating even larger problems.
Take cellulosic ethanol: though far from a new idea, it remains a disputed one. When word got out that one could create a gasoline-type fuel from the corn they were growing in their backyard, there was a boom in maize-based ethanol. The U.S. government incorporated ethanol into federal subsidies distribution, and as of 2007, the alternative fuel source received $3.25 billion in subsidy (www.grist.org) and greater than 76 percent of renewable energy tax credits (www.greentechmedia.com).
That’s great, you may be thinking, that we’ve been supporting a renewable fuel source for several years now. What’s not advertised about ethanol, and seems to elude policy makers year after year, is corn ethanol’s destructive tendencies on Mother Nature. The corn used for ethanol is a very resource-intensive crop, as it requires nitrogen-based fertilizers, chemical-laden pesticides, and tens of billions of gallons of water to thrive. For every one gallon of ethanol fuel produced, up to six gallons of water are required. (Water use by Ethanol plants: Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy). This cannot be sustainable in a progressively drought-burdened world.
Similar resource issues apply to sugarcane-based ethanol, as well as an even more acute problem regarding its land requirements. Ecosystem-sustaining rainforests in Brazil and Thailand are being removed in order to harvest sugarcane for its conversion to use in gasoline engines. Though the crop is more energy efficient than its cobbed-counterpart, the destruction of the carbon syncs (aka trees) has the opposite-desired effect on carbon reduction. The United States indirectly supports this practice by providing a subsidy to the tariff charged on imported biofuels.
On the other hand, not all biofuels are land-soliciting or 
energy-intensive. Some require little to no energy at all. We are seeing investment into the development of efficient new sources of ethanol, derived from algae and quick growing switch-grass, which are promising and economical solutions in renewable technology. Some have taken it a step further by employing a fuel source otherwise thrown away. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable-based oil, and collecting used sources of oil from restaurant fryers and factory dumpsters for filtering and thinning offers a renewable source from a recycled product.
Hydropower is another way of extracting the energy from a renewable source, by simply turning a turbine with moving water to create electricity. One infrastructure already in place are dams; There are currently more than 8100 dams in the United States, and the government is proposing a $30.6 million investment into the extension of this network (www.energy.gov). Although dams have a lot of positive characteristics, being low carbon yield, abundant energy output and relatively inexpensive upkeep, they are not without 
their environmental concerns. Until issues regarding fish migration, stream diversion and desertion, lowered water oxygen content and increased algae blooms are resolved, the construction of new dams will persist in weakening the biodiversity of river environments.
The alternative sources of hydropower, namely tidal and wave electricity generation, hold a lot of promise. This technology, while still in its development stage, has the potential to offer approximately 2 terawatts of energy across the planet, according to a The World Energy Council estimate (www.thinkglobalgreen.org), and with little foreseen repercussion. The impacts on fish migration, underwater plant life and marine biology, however, have yet to be fully surveyed.
As the necessity to wean ourselves from fossil fuels increases, so will the innovations in deriving energy from renewable resources. When once we depended on three or four major sources of fuel, the future may hold for us dozens of different sources of energy with varied outputs. As new ideas come to light, we must regard each one as both a probable solution and potential adversity. Researching the absolute affect of renewable energy on the earth before injecting funding into its implementation will be the key to either the success or failure of our global community.
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