Renewable Energy Infographic

I’m always on the lookout for good infographics on renewable energy.  I just came across the one I linked above, but it’s flawed for several reasons:

• It treats as separate items things like “hydro” and “biomass” (sources of energy) with “heat” and “power” (uses of energy), but then adds them together.  That’s like adding up “apples” and “fruit” – it’s double-counting apples, or adding apples and motorcycles and getting something meaningless.

• It combines geothermal, biomass, wind, and solar.  I would think the point would be to break these out.

• Most of what it refers to as “biomass” is essentially deforestation – chopping down trees and burning them for fuel in the developing countries of Africa.  Technically, this is renewable energy, but that misses the point; energy from this source is far more damaging to the planet than coal.   If you don’t care about that, there is no reason to care about renewable energy in the first place.

Here’s an open invitation: Anyone working on an infographic in this space can get my two-cents’ worth on the basic concepts in advance, absolutely free.