CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING RENEWABLE ENERGY 1

Challenges in Converting to Renewable Energy

Reece Armbrustmacher

Kettering University

May 16, 2022

CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 2

With an increasing public awareness to the problems that fossil fuels cause renewable

energy generation has seen a massive increase in growth worldwide over the last couple decades.

Along with the increasing climate related problems there are also the geopolitical issues about

where our oil comes from, with most of the worldwide supply of oil coming from counties that

historically have not aligned with western values such as Russia and the Middle East there is an

increasing interest to not get our oil and gas from potential adversaries. These factors have

caused massive investment in the renewable energy space which has caused much debate on the

role renewable energy should play in the United States. There are still many challenges ahead for

the deployment of renewable energy and many issues still need to be solved. The goal of this

literature review is not to sway people to become either for or against renewable energy

adoption, but rather it is to examine existing problems that have to be overcome in areas such as

technology, geopolitics, and citizen interest in order to make renewable energy more widespread

across the United States.

TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

Wind Energy

There are currently many technical challenges that stop renewable energy sources from

becoming more popular. When it comes to wind energy one of the main challenges in geography,

the wind blows harder in some parts of the country than others and this causes wind energy to

only be feasible in certain parts of the United States. The estimated onshore wind energy has the

annual potential to generate 50 million GWh of electricity with the central areas Iowa, Kansas,

Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming

having the largest potential (Osmani et al.). So while the potential is there for a large part of the

United States to be powered by wind energy the problem is that the majority of the states listed
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 3

have very small populations so all the excess energy has to be transported by large powerlines to

places with higher populations such as New York or California. This causes major problems in

that energy will be lost to transport inefficacy over those long distances so less energy is useable

compared to what is generated.

Solar Energy

There are also many technical challenges when it comes to implementing solar energy in

the United States. Solar Energy can be implemented in any part of the United States however, it

is the most efficient to deploy solar in places that have a lot of Solar Energy. The southwestern

States of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, and Utah have the largest

solar energy potential (Osmani et al.). While these places have a larger population than places in

the Midwest there is still the problem where most of this power can only be used locally, and it

takes lots of land to be able to use solar panels. One way to get around this is to have normal

citizens put solar panels on their houses to save space on the ground but one major problem with

solar is that it has a very high upfront cost. There is work being done to improve conversion

efficiencies and reduce electricity generation costs which should allow more people to purchase

solar for home use in the future (Osmani et al.).

Hydropower

Hydroelectric power has the advantage of being one of the oldest and most used

renewable energy sources, small dams have been used to drive various machines for hundreds of

years. There are rivers all over the United States that can support hydroelectric dams so the

problems of having to transmit power across the country aren’t such a big problem. However

there are problems with disrupting fish and creating massive lakes behind where the dam is

placed, there is also the problem that if a dam bursts for whatever reason it has the potential to
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 4

cause massive damage and loss of life downstream. In the US, the use of hydroelectric power has

plateaued out, indicating that most of the promising large scale hydropower sites in the U.S. have

already been tapped (Osmani et al.). There is also the potential if a dam is placed in a location

that is prone to droughts such as the U.S. West that the water level in the river can lower which

drastically reduces the amount of electricity that the dam can produce. Since most of the large

reservoirs already have dams created on them it is expected, that future hydropower projects will

be limited to micro-scale (Osmani et al.). Hydropower in the United States has largely already

been utilized to it’s max which will make it economically unfeasible to continue to invest large

amounts of money to develop more hydroelectric dams.

POLITICAL CHALLENGES

U.S. China Relationship

There are many political reasons why the United States has been less likely to deploy

renewable energy than some other countries. The United States and China have worked together

as the leaders in the development of new solar technologies however that has caused some rough

spots in regards to solar being used in the United States. The rise in Chinese manufacturing

helped to lower the costs of solar PV systems (Hughes, L., & Meckling, J.), however this has led

to China being pretty much the sole supplier of solar panels to the United States. In the United

States two trade cases-in 2011-12 and 2013-14 respectively led to the imposition of unilateral

tariffs against a number of module manufacturers based in China (Hughes, L., & Meckling, J.),

this caused the price of solar panels in the U.S. to skyrocket and made it unaffordable to the the

average citizen. Even though efficacies in manufacturing of solar panels has caused the price to

drop by a considerable amount tariffs and other fees have caused the prices to remain high. The

tariffs have helped U.S. manufacturers of solar panels however it will be a while until the price
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 5

comes down because of higher wages in the U.S. and it takes lots of upfront capital to invest in

new machines and tools to manufacture solar panels.

Oil and Gas Companies

As a general rule big Oil and Gas companies don’t want to see renewable energy succeed

because it threatens their business and as a result they have fought back. Over the years they

have spent billions and billions on initiatives to stop renewable energy including creating articles

to promote climate denial. ExxonMobil orchestrated and financed the most sophisticated and

successful denial campaign since the notorious tobacco industry one (Grasso, M.), Exxon has

invested large amounts of money to buy scientific think tanks and scientific institutes all with the

goal of pushing false or misleading information in order to get people to deny climate change.

Over the Period of 1998-2014, the company funded 69 climate denial organizations (Grasso, M.)

this caused the public to have doubt about climate change and allowed Exxon to continue to

profit from the sale of oil and gas. Exxon has a massive history of continuing to fund

organizations that deny climate change and try to sway the public opinion of climate change all

while the CEO and members of the board say that they are continuing to invest heavily into

climate saving initiatives and looking for ways to reduce emissions.

ISSUES THAT CITIZENS HAVE

Wind Turbines

There are many issues that the general population has with certain renewable energy

systems and a big one is wind turbines. One big issue that many people in the general population

has is that massive wind farms take away from the natural beauty of the open landscape and can

create an “eye sore”. In particular, visual impacts have been widely considered as a central

matter of contestation when wind farms are proposed (Pohl, J., Rudolph, D., Lyhne, I., Clausen,
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 6

N. E., Aaen, S. B., Hübner, G., Kørnøv, L., & Kirkegaard, J. K.). Even though one of the main

issues with new wind turbine production is the visual impact that installing one has there are also

many other problems that cause people to not want turbines including noise. The more residents

felt annoyed by noise, landscape change or obstruction marking, the less they accepted the wind

farm (Pohl, J., Rudolph, D., Lyhne, I., Clausen, N. E., Aaen, S. B., Hübner, G., Kørnøv, L., &

Kirkegaard, J. K.). These are problems that must be addressed in order for wind power to be

deployed on a large scale, this is one of the many reasons that wind turbines are often placed in

very remote areas such as the great plains. Being made in a remote location allows for turbines to

produce more energy because there are less obstructions, but it also makes it more likely that the

local population will allow the turbines to be created in their area because the turbines can be

placed farther away from houses and thus reduce the number of negative effects such as noise

that the local population has the endure.

SOLAR ENERGY

Solar energy has an advantage over wind turbines in the fact that solar panels can be

deployed in small amounts such as on peoples houses and don’t need a huge farm to be cost

effective. The main issue that citizens still have with solar is that it demands a very high up-front

cost. Even though over time solar panels will pay for themselves in the savings of energy costs it

can still cost 10’s of thousands of dollars to add panels onto a roof and for many families that is a

cost they can’t afford. There are some solutions being offered by the state and federal

governments in the form of tax credits, as well as some solutions by companies in the form of

leasing solar panels instead of buying solar panels. Leasing is economical for the lessees as long

as the combination of monthly leasing fees and the costs of grid electricity consumption are

lower than the costs if all electricity demands were being completely met by the grid (Liu, X.,
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 7

O’Rear, E. G., Tyner, W. E., & Pekny, J. F.). Leasing is a good option for people to be able to

buy solar panels for a lower cost than owning them however over the life of the solar panels in is

still more economical to buy instead of leasing. One of the main reasons people don’t put solar

panels on their houses is the cost and while the cost is falling everyday and clever ways to

finance such as tax credits and leasing are helping the situation there is still much work to do

until solar panels become cheap enough for the vast majority of people to install them on their

house.

SUMMARY

As climate and geopolitical issues continue to become a problem there will be a

continued debate over the role of renewable energy in the United States. Based on the

information collected it is clear that there is still much work to be done in order to make

renewable energy as widespread as it needs to be in order to solve these problems. Changes in

efficacy and life spans of renewable energy will continue however these things take time in order

to develop. By continuing to invest in Research and Development, solving geopolitical issues

around the supply chain of components, and helping the public gain a more positive view of

renewable energy overtime the amount of energy that comes from renewable sources will

increase and can be done in a sustainable way that doesn’t have as many negative impacts.
CHALLENGES IN CONVERTING TO RENEWABLE ENERGY 8

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