Title: (c) 'Renewable energy' – history of a term
Course: Project week - Leuphana-Copy > Section: What is renewable energy? (science focus)

The term '(non-) renewable energy' is not free from criticism. In its most basic meaning, it makes a distinction between energy sources that are renewable and energy sources that are not.

1. Reflect on the word meaning

Think about the following questions and discuss them with a partner or in class:

- What does the term (non-) renewable energy highlight – and what does it hide?
- What other criteria can you think of to group different types of energy sources – besides being (non-) renewable?
- Why do you think has the term 'renewable energy' such an important meaning today?

2. Explore the historic background of 'renewable energy'

The term 'renewable energy' became widely used in the 1960s and 70s. Understanding why this concept was introduced to public discourse can help you understand the wider meaning of this terminology. Examine this historical background with the following resources. You can split up in different groups and focus on one of the resources each.

- Study the following diagrams and explain what they show.
- To structure your work, you can apply the TIP: Analysing visual texts (charts and tables) and the Questions for analyzing diagrams as a help.

[fa-comments-o] You can collect and discuss your findings in the Course Forum.

Figure 1: Historical chart of West Texas Intermediate (WTI or NYMEX) crude oil prices per barrel back to 1946. (The price of oil shown is adjusted for inflation using the headline CPI and is shown by default on a logarithmic scale. Source: Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart.

Figure 2: World Primary Energy Use: The figure shows the explosive growth of global primary energy with two clear development phases, the first characterized by a shift from reliance on traditional energy sources to coal and subsequently to oil and gas. Hydropower, biomass, and nuclear energy during the past decades have a combined share of almost 22%. New renewables such as solar and wind are hardly discernible in the figure. Biomass refers to traditional biomass until the most recent decades, when modern biomass became more prevalent and now accounts for one-quarter of biomass energy. Source: Grubler A et al. (2012). Chapter 1—Energy Primer. In: Global Energy Assessment—Toward a Sustainable Future, IIASA, Vienna, Austria and Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA.

Further information

Both diagrams have to do with the consequences of the so-called oil and energy crisis of the 1960s and 70s. This was a time when the West's access to crude oil (or mineral oil) - the main energy resource at the time and, in many contexts, still today - was limited by the oil producing countries in the Middle East. The lack of such an important energy resource created severe consequences for western economies, especially the U.S., that could also be felt by people in their everyday lives.

The National Museum of American History writes:

The energy crisis played a key role in the economic downturn of the 1970s. With the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, oil prices jumped 350%, and the higher costs rippled through the economy. Although business and government asked consumers to help by conserving energy, and entrepreneurs worked on solutions, the economic crises worsened. As things got more expensive, businesses laid off workers. Inflation and economic stagnation produced “stagflation” and shook confidence in the American dream.

— National Museum of American History

To find out more about this, visit the Khan Academy website and read this article:

- Khan Academy: "Stagflation and the oil crisis."