Dear Aidan,

«It's renewed by nature (mostly the sun, though for some geothermal energy the source is radioactive decay)»

Sun energy is not renewed, but dispersed and wasted, eventually heating the entire physical universe evenly.
The sun can only produce "new" energy by fusing more hydrogen atoms into helium thereby converting some of the mass-energy of these atoms into radiation-energy, but the hydrogen in the sun will not last forever.

Yuyutsu,
I'm well aware the hydrogen in the sun won't last for ever. But we can't prolong its life.

Renewable energy has a specific meaning in our language. Your attempt to redefine it to make it impossible is disingenuous.

Dear Aidan,

«Renewable energy has a specific meaning in our language.»

I am well aware that "renewable energy" has a specific meaning in the language of some political groups.
If you identify with any of these groups then your stating "in our language" is correct, but then this language is no longer English or scientific.

Modification of language for political ends is not something new - it was described in Orwell's famous book, "1984", where English is reconstructed to exclude the possibility of expressing anti-regime views. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

In this particular case, the anti-scientific term "renewable energy" was coined to depict certain, politically-desirable, sources of energy as "good", as opposed to "non-renewable energy" which is considered bad. A more honest approach would be to call the politically-desirable sources of energy, "progressive energy" as it corresponds to the ways the above political groups wish to move into, as opposed to "regressive energy" that corresponds to ways they wish to forsake.

I will not go along with such attempts to convey a political preference through misleading subliminal messages.

Yuyutsu,
It is you who's trying to manipulate the language to politicize this. And think Greta Thumberg has the most appropriate response: HOW DARE YOU!

Your attempt to turn conservatives against renewable energy by trying to relabel it "progressive energy", based on the LIES that its existing meaning is confined to certain political groups, and no longer English nor scientific, is something I'd expect from some of the dinosaurs on this board, but I genuinely never thought you'd stoop that low!

What follows is a quote from the back pages of New Scientist (Dec 7 2019):
An Article in The Australian caught Feedback's eye this week - or to be more precise, a pull quote in an image shared on Twitter that can ultimately be traced back to an article in The Australian.
"There are no carbon emissions" it read. "If there were we could not see because most carbon is black", it – for some reason – went on.
We were grateful to the author of those words fro splitting a hair so fine that Feedback had assumed its circumference was bound by a single atom.
Carbon emissions aren't, of course, composed exclusively of carbon. In a similar vein, we feel obligated to point out that humans cannot, in fact, shed crocodile tears, no statements can ever be made by the White House as it is a building with no record of sentience, and word salad isn't strictly a vegetable dish made from phonemes, but rather a meaningless garble involved in the service of a ridiculous point. Possibly – but possibly not – concerning climate change.

[Apologies for my two typos in the above quote: "article" shouldn't be capitalized, and "involved" should have been "invoked".]

Dear Aidan,

I appreciate your effort to correct your inadvertent typing errors. This respect for grammar and correct spelling is sadly a rare commodity nowadays.

I do not know this Mrs. Thumberg which you mentioned, perhaps because I keep away from this social-media and all the stupidity therein. I have not politicized the term "renewable energy" because it is already a political term - all I did was to merely observe and note that fact, just like the boy who stated "the king is naked!".

While I protested the use of the term "renewable energy" and the subconscious thought-groove that it is likely to lead into, objecting to the use of this unscientific and political term does not amount to objecting to the actual sources of energy which the users of this term denote by it. You may in fact observe that I mentioned nothing in praise, condemnation or preference of any particular energy source.

If you do not like the alternate name that I suggested, i.e. "progressive energy", then please feel free to provide a different name for this set of energy-sources that you have in mind, provided that the chosen name clearly refers to the political preference behind this set rather than to a scientific impossibility. Remember, I never said that this preference of certain energy sources is bad or wrong, only that you ought to own your preferences for what they are.

The expression "crocodile tears", while far from stating a biological truth, at least has no hidden agenda and does not mislead any reasonably-intelligent person to believe that it has to do with crocodiles.

Finally, it is clear as crystal that carbon is not black, for diamonds are made of pure carbon!