renewable energy
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GC: n

CT: Renewables will also have a crucial role to play in the UK energy mix in the decades beyond, making the most of the UK’s abundant natural resources.
To increase and accelerate the use of renewable energy in the UK, we have introduced:

  • Renewables Obligation (RO) – provides incentives for large-scale renewable electricity generation by making UK suppliers source a proportion of their electricity from eligible renewable sources
  • Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) scheme – pays energy users who invest in small-scale, low-carbon electricity generation systems for the electricity they generate and use, and for unused electricity they export back to the grid
  • Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) – pays commercial, industrial, public, not-for-profit and community generators of renewable heat for a 20-year period
  • UK Renewable Energy Roadmap – sets out a plan for accelerating the use of onshore wind, offshore wind, marine energy, solar PV, biomass electricity and heat, ground source and air source heat pumps, and renewable transport
  • Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation – makes companies that supply more than 450,000 litres of fuel per year source a percentage from renewable sources
  • Support for other renewable technologies, eg heat networks
  • ‘Connect and manage network access regimes and other actions to make sure new generators can connect to the electricity network in a timely, secure and cost-effective way.

Our Electricity Market Reform proposals will also provide support for renewable electricity generation from 2014 onwards..

S: https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-use-of-low-carbon-technologies (last access: 10 January 2015)

N: 1. renewable (adj): 1727, from renew (verb; late 14c., from re- “again” + Middle English newen “resume, revive, renew”; formed on analogy of Latin renovare) + -able (word-forming element expressing ability, capacity, fitness, from French, from Latin -ibilis, -abilis, forming adjectives from verbs, from PIE -tro-, a suffix used to form nouns of instrument). In reference to energy sources, attested by 1971.
energy (n): 1590s, “force of expression,” from Middle French énergie (16c.), from Late Latin energia, from Greek energeia “activity, action, operation,” from energos “active, working,” from en “at” + ergon “work, that which is wrought; business; action”.
Used by Aristotle with a sense of “actuality, reality, existence” (opposed to “potential”) but this was misunderstood in Late Latin and afterward as “force of expression,” as the power which calls up realistic mental pictures. Broader meaning of “power” in English is first recorded 1660s. Scientific use is from 1807. Energy crisis first attested 1970.
2. Renewable energy, also called alternative energy, usable energy derived from replenishable sources such as the sun (solar energy), wind (wind power), rivers (hydroelectric power), hot springs (geothermal energy), tides (tidal power), and biomass (biofuels).
3. At the beginning of the 21st century, about 80 per cent of the world’s energy supply was derived from fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas. Fossil fuels are finite resources; most estimates suggest that the proven reserves of oil are large enough to meet global demand at least until the middle of the 21st century. Fossil fuel combustion has a number of negative environmental consequences. Fossil-fueled power plants emit air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and toxic chemicals (heavy metals: mercury, chromium, and arsenic), and mobile sources, such as fossil-fueled vehicles, emit nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and particulate matter. Exposure to these pollutants can cause heart disease, asthma and other human health problems
4. Any energy that is regarded as practically inexhaustible such as water, biomass, wind, sunlight, earth and waste, etc. Term used at the Office of Energy Efficiency, Natural Resources Canada, and extracted from its 2001 Annual Report.
5. Renewable energy sources are not exactly the same as alternative energy sources. Alternative energy is a broader category encompassing all non-fossil-fuel-based energy sources and processes, of which renewable energies are only a part. Forms of alternative energy not covered under the renewable label include hydrogen power and fission power. Since current levels of hydrogen and fission power generation are extremely low, renewable energies are now of greater interest to us.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=renewable+energy&searchmode=none; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=energy&searchmode=none (last access: 21 October 2014). 2 & 3. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/17668/renewable-energy (last access: 21 October 2014). 4. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 21 October 2014). 5. http://www.globalization101.org/renewable-and-alternative-energy-sources/ (last access: 10 January 2015).

SYN: 1. renewable energy sources, sustainable energy sources, renewable sources of energy. 2. renewable energy source. 3. alternative energy (context). 4. regenorative energy (less frequent).

S: 1. TACIS (1545) p. 438. 2. GDT – http://www.granddictionnaire.com/ficheOqlf.aspx?Id_Fiche=26505413 (last access: 3 January 2016). 3. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/17668/renewable-energy (last access: 21 October 2014). 4. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 21 October 2014).

CR: autotroph, biocatalysis, biomass energy, cavitation, diode , ecological footprint, hybrid car, [solar power], solar pump, tidal power, water hammer, [water power], wind energy.