ASSESSMENT METHODS OF USING RENEWABLE ENERGIES
ASSESSMENT METHODS OF USING RENEWABLE ENERGIES

Summary/Abstract: Human economic activities, irrespective of their type, being industrial,agricultural, commercial or touristic ones, have the goal to support the increase of humanbeings quality of life. Beside positive direct and desired effects of diverse human economicactivitiesthese could also have sometimes negative, undesired and even unthinkable impactson environment and society. Especially activities related to energy generation can haveseveral inadvertent unwanted impacts on environment and society. With the goal of assuringthe sustainability of our human society it is therefore implicitly required to assess not onlyindustrial processes but also especially energy generation activities by applying economicand technological methods of approach as well as environmental and social ones. In thecontext of global debates related to limited availability of fossil fuels, current activitiesconcerning electrical and thermal energy generation are focused on using renewable energyresources on a global level for assuring corresponding energy needed by the population.During the last decades, assessment methods for evaluating using odds of renewable energyresources have been applied especially in the context of the pretty new discipline calledTechnology Assessment. Moreover, even new integrative assessment methods have beendeveloped forsimultaneously considering interdisciplinary aspectsin assessing procedures.Technology Assessment has been firstly designed in the United States and then it became wellknown in Western Europe as well, currently itsspecific assessment methods being fairly usedon a worldwide level. In order to carry out environmental assessment studies of usingrenewable energy resources the pretty known tool of Life Cycle Assessment, LCA can beapplied and successfully used. In the present article, general notions regarding assessmentmethods especially environmental ones will be considered. As an example a Fuzzy-Logicbased integrative assessment method will be presented, where possibilities for assessing theregional use ofrenewable energy resourceswill be debated, after presenting the workingwayof Fuzzy Logic.

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