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Requirement

7. Choose FIVE energy systems from nine, and research each

Required

For each of the five: what is being done to make it produce more usable energy, plus the technology, the cost, the environmental impacts and the safety concerns. Four things about each, so twenty pieces of research.

Notes and warnings

Note. Five systems, four things about each, so twenty pieces of research. Unusually for a choice on a merit badge, none of these nine costs more than the others in time, money or access, since all of them are reading. Choose on what you can find good sources for. Tidal, wave and ocean thermal is the least commercially deployed of the nine, which makes its cost figures the hardest to pin down.

What this is made of

Where this step comes from

  1. Energy Merit Badge Requirements (Merit Badge Hub, last modified 2025-12-15), Requirement 7 · Five of the nine systems listed.