Seven good reasons in favour of renewable energies
The rheinland-pfälzische Unternehmen JUWI promotes a sustainable energy supply with: Wind energy, solar energy, the various forms of bioenergy, hydropower, geothermal energy and ocean current energy.
What they all have in common is that they are inexhaustible or rapidly renewable according to human judgement. Renewable energies such as hydropower and wind energy have been used for centuries, but have lost ground due to the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy, especially in industrialised countries. However, they have been on the rise again for several decades.
And there are good reasons for this:
- Firstly, renewable energies ensure price stability, as there are no fuel costs associated with their use (with the exception of bioenergy). There is no damage to people and the environment caused by the extraction of fuels (as is the case with oil production due to leaks and tanker accidents, and with lignite mining due to the devastation of entire regions).
- Secondly, renewable energies are generated regionally and in a decentralised manner. Many people benefit from the added value: farmers, homeowners and tradespeople become electricity producers, as do citizens who join together to form cooperatives, buy shares in community solar plants and wind farms, benefit from special electricity offers or purchase savings bonds.
- Thirdly, hundreds of thousands of people have now installed their own small PV systems on their balconies or terraces. The Renewable Energy Sources Act also secures a financial share for communities surrounding wind farms.
- Fourthly: Renewable energies are domestic resources. Their use reduces our dependence on oil and gas supplies from politically unstable regions, which we use to finance authoritarian regimes and human rights violations.
- Fifthly, wind turbines and solar plants can be dismantled and largely recycled. There is no radioactive waste or other eternal damage as in mining.
- Sixthly, renewable energies have created over eleven million new, sustainable jobs worldwide in recent decades.
- Seventhly, green energy is the great hope for a better world for the younger generation. Every child born today should know that a 100 per cent switch to renewable energies can be achieved worldwide in the next two decades, thus preserving or restoring a life-friendly climate.
The monks of the Benedictine monastery of Münsterschwarzach near Würzburg have shown how quickly a 100 per cent energy transition is possible with good will. After reading my book “Der ökologische Jesus – Vertrauen in die Schöpfung” (Riemann-Verlag 2,000 and Goldmann-Taschenbuch 2002), they decided in the year 2,000, under the leadership of my friend and abbot Father Fidelis and the Benedictine monk Anselm Grün, who is known as a successful author, to be one hundred per cent energy self-sufficient in ten years using renewable energy, mainly from their Franconian region. Just eight years later, they had achieved their goal.
“Careful treatment of creation is our Christian mission,” the dedicated Benedictine monks explained to me after my talk in their monastery. Christians must also work to ensure that future generations can also lead a good life on this planet. “To get to heaven,” one monk told me, “we have to make a big difference on earth. As a Christian monastery, we also have a role model function.”
Source
Franz Alt 2024 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
