Sustainable Energy

“Sustainable energy is the production and use of energy resources in ways that promote or at least are compatible with long-term human wellbeing and ecological balance” (UNDP,

24 2000). The main objectives of the sustainable energy are the protection of ecology, management of natural resources and provide energy security (Stanford, 1997). In fact, there is a very close relationship between the concept of sustainable development and sustainable energy. Since energy consumption causes the emission and deteriorates the environment, ecological dimension of these two concepts looks like each other.

On the other hand, energy is the main element of the current economies. To produce goods and services human beings needs more energy than before. In this sense, economic objectives of these two concepts resemble each other. Finally, to protect the social wellbeing is the common objective of sustainable development and sustainable energy.

As mentioned above, the sustainable development has three dimension; environment, economy and society. Like being in sustainable development, sustainable energy also has similar dimensions. Economic growth stimulates the energy demand because energy is the inevitable inputs of the contemporary economies. In order to grow and produce goods and services, the countries need to access energy at an affordable cost, in a secure, sustainable and uninterrupted way. When the countries reach the adequate, reliable and affordable energy resources, this situation increases their investment, facilitate industrialization, raise their competition power in global market and improve their foreign trade. Therefore, the goal of sustainable energy intersects with the economic dimension of sustainable development. For the social development of the communities, the energy is required because, for cooking, cooling, heating, lighting and transportation, todays’ people need more energy than before (Schwartz, 2009).

By providing these facilities, energy contributes to the human welfare. To alleviate poverty, promote economic growth and improve social development, it plays a crucial role.

Sustainable energy also tries to increase efficiency of energy use and aims to decrease fossil based energy usage, as this kind of energy causes environmental problems at local, national and global levels. It supports technological development to promote the efficiency of the energy production and consumption. Briefly, the goals of sustainable development and sustainable energy intersect with each other.

25 When we look at the targets of the sustainable energy we see that there are five targets of the sustainable energy; to improve the supply security of energy, to reduce the cost of energy, to develop usage of renewable energy, to eliminate environmental impact of energy and to provide net zero emission of harmful gases. Due to the fact that excess use of energy cause some environmental problem, such as global warming, sustainable energy aims to decrease harmful effect of energy consumption until the carrying capacity level of ecosystems (UNDP, 1997).

Energy consumption is the basic right of the human being. Hence, accessibility of energy at a low cost, securely and in an uninterrupted way is very important to sustain well-being of the societies. For these reasons, sustainable energy tries to get cheap, reliable and uninterrupted energy for the societies. Eventually, since finite energy resources are not sustainable, to increase the renewable energy use is very essential for achieving the target of the sustainable energy (Acres, 2007). Beside these, to increase the energy efficiency and to decrease the energy intensity is as important as the renewable energy use for the sustainable energy concept (Standford, 1997).

Sustainable energy policy consists of all policies, technologies and implementations that provide our energy requirement with a minimum cost on environment, society and economy. With this definition, we see that sustainable energy directly related with the technology, efficiency both in the production and consumption of energy, replacing the old technology with eco-friendly one, encouragement of the usage of renewable energy instead of fossil based fuels, recycling the waste by converting them to the new energy. (Selici at al, 2006:3).

Sustainable energy concept combines efficient energy usage with the economic growth, because all of these policies affect the economy directly or indirectly. While the sustainable energy policies try to develop fossil based fuel technologies to reduce the weight of fossil fuel based energy system and harmful effect of them, at the same time try to increase efficiency of the energy use especially in appliances, buildings and motor vehicles. In order to minimize the adverse effects of energy use, it supports renewable energy usage (UNDP, 1997).

26 According to the World Energy Council’s (WEC) declaration, social, economic and environmental dimensions of the sustainability were covered under the "accessibility",

"available" and "acceptability", criteria in the sustainable energy concept (WEC, 2004). To provide sustainability in energy;

1. Energy diversification and energy efficiency, 2. Energy infrastructure investments,

3. Energy market intervention, 4. Reliability of supply,

5. Regional integration of energy systems, 6. Climate change policies on market conditions,

7. Technological innovation and technology development, 8. Ensuring the public's understanding and trust,

are necessary for every countries (WEC, 2004).

Fossil based resources, such as coal, oil and natural gas, are the non-renewable resources and they have been consumed since the discovery day of them. Due to the fact that they have been diminishing in everyday and they cannot be replaced in a very short period of time, it is estimated that with the current consumption level, the fossil based reserves will be exhausted between the 50-200 years. Therefore, the energy policy depending on the fossil based resources cannot be named as sustainable (Acres, 2007; (Selici at all., 2006:4).

Besides, excessive consumption of this resources cause the environmental pollution, climate change, and global warming in the world. As a result of these side effects, the diseases have been increasing, the species are decreasing or completely disappearing, the floods and drought become widespread in the world. For these reasons, it is very clear that fossil based energy policy cannot be called as sustainable energy policy (Selici at all., 2006:4).

Today renewable energy usage becomes necessary for sustainable energy. Energy produced from renewables does not leave any waste and they do not pollute the air. Also the waste, such as burned fat, used paper etc, produced by people can be converted to the energy by using the renewable energy technology and this situation also contributes the

27 clean environment policy. As a result of renewable energy usage, the cleaner world is unavoidable. (Selici at all, 2006: 4)

Sustainable energy policy gives great importance to the energy efficiency and renewable energy resources (Standford, 1995). In order to promote renewable energy usage it is very important to improve renewable technology and infrastructure. Today especially developed countries and EU countries give weight to these two concepts. According to the estimation of EU, with the rise of the efficiency in the production side, it is possible to produce 20 % more energy. At the same time, with the rise of efficiency in the consumption side the energy consumption can be decreased considerably. EU aims to produce at least 20 % of energy from renewable resources by 2020. Like EU, Turkey also targets to produce 30 % of its electric need from renewable energy resources by the year 2023.