Eco Friendly Electric Power Generation
As we move into the 21st century, there are many wanting electric power generation to be clean and renewable. The thinking is that coal powered electric generation generates to much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and is causing global warming. The same can be said for generating electric power using natural gas. Nuclear power generation does not generate atmospheric pollutants, but its by-products will be with for hundreds of years and must be stored so that their radioactivity is not a threat to anyone.
Considered the most eco friendly power generating system is wind power. But what critics lament is wind power's risk to migrating birds and that wind farms spoil their views of the environment. One group of residents in northern New England are complaining about the sound of the turning blades disturbing the silence they once enjoyed.
Solar panel is also eco friendly and poses less of a risk to wild life, but due to each solar cell's low yield, a large expanse is required for the massive installations required to generate enough commercial power to make them financially feasible.
Generating power via water released for a dam would appear to be eco friendly until you take into account that their are few sources of flowing water that don't require being enhanced by the building of a dam which its resultant build up of a water reservoir behind the dam and the flooding of hundreds if not millions of acres of land.
Tide power might also be considered eco friendly until you realize that risong and falling tides alone will not generate eletric power unless the floats that respond to tide fluctuations must be anchored to the sea floor or shoreline affecting fish, lobsters, crabs and other sea creatures.
Power can be generated using the methane gas released from existing land fills but the levels of power generated is well below what could be considered commercially feasible.
03/04/07 ( 197 )
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