What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Kinetic Energy?

The advantages of kinetic energy include the ability to produce renewable energy, the availability of being an abundant resource and the effectiveness of being exponentially proportional to its velocity, as detailed by the Physics Classroom. Disadvantages of kinetic energy, stated by Energy Informative, include the expense of harnessing it, the challenge of keeping the movement constant, effectively handling friction and the limitation of only large materials producing substantial energy.

Kinetic energy is the energy of movement. It is an abundant resource, because many materials have the ability to create movement that can be harnessed and produce energy, such as wind power, hydroelectric power and thermal power. The kinetic energy increases by a factor of four when the speed of the material is doubled, according to the Physics Classroom. Harnessing kinetic energy involves building and maintaining machines to allow the movement to effectively generate work, such as windmills, hydroelectric turbines and large solar panels, states the website Bionomic Fuel. Friction is the force that opposes movement, so it is a natural enemy of kinetic energy. Keeping kinetic energy at a constant movement is a challenge. The wind is not always blowing, the sun is not always shining and water is not always flowing; therefore, intermediate energy resources are necessary. Finally, to produce large amounts of energy, the machines needed to harness the kinetic energy must be substantial, both in size and quantity, which requires a large amount of available space.