Renewable Energy and Long-Term Energy Planning

Even without any energy crisis, exploiting renewable sources of energy appears more and more important to ensure the reliability of longterm supply and to provide relief now. According to the Canadian Office of Energy Research and Development, in 1985 renewable energy sources (excluding large hydro developments) contributed to yearly needs as much energy as frontier oil and gas fields combined are expected to yield by the turn of the century. This contribution was not forecast in official studies, and this failure demands that we look into the causes.