The Energy Reader argues
that today’s ever-growing demand for energy is unsustainable and that people
need to reduce the energy that they use and generate that energy from more
sustainable sources. Yet today, most
alternative energies are not ready to step up and become a major energy producer
because of the challenges discussed by David Fridley in “Alternative Energy
Challenges.” Positive environmental
progress can be made if society begins to implement the good alternative
energies we have today and if society decreases its energy usage. Realistically speaking, though, most
electricity in the near future will still be generated by coal, natural gas, or
nuclear energy because these three energy sources are the only ones that can
generate a large quantity of electricity non-intermittently in most
locations. Therefore, it is essential to
analyze these three technologies and to decide which technology, or which
combination of technologies, would be the best for the environment right now,
considering society is going to have to use at least one of them until other
alternative energy sources get better.
Coal is the oldest-used fossil fuel,
as well as one of the dirtiest to burn.
Burning coal releases carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrous oxides,
mercury, and particulate matter into the air, which causes climate change, acid
rain, biomagnification of mercury in fish, and asthma and other respiratory
problems in animals. Additionally,
mining the coal destroys mountains, fills in valleys, and generates tons of
waste that many times pollutes nearby streams.
Jeff Goodell argues that the industry is still so strong because of
greenwashing advertising, which markets “clean coal” technology and tricks
people into thinking that coal isn’t dirty.
This allows people to think that energy generation is getting cleaner
and that there is nothing to worry about.
In addition, heavy lobbyism helps to keep carbon taxes and other
environmental taxes and regulations out of the coal industry, in order to keep
the price of coal down. Regardless of
the regulations set up or the greenwashing though, coal is incredibly energy
dense, many times located near the surface, easy to transport, and can provide
cheap electricity to the consumer. Greenwashing
or not, should we continue to burn coal or should we look to one of the other
two energy sources for electricity?
High-volume slick water hydraulic
fracturing is one of the newest ways to get natural gas out of the ground. The rate at which the industry is growing is
really big because the new technology allows natural gas that was originally
too difficult to get out economically profitable to recover. This can help the United States to acquire
domestic natural gas, which can be burned for electricity with half of the
greenhouse gas emissions of the other fossil fuels. The natural gas, similarly to coal, is
portable, energy dense, and can provide cheap electricity. The problem is that the process of hydraulic
fracturing uses millions of gallons of water per frack and mixes them with
hundreds of chemicals, many of which are known carcinogens and
neurotoxins. These toxins poison the water,
to the point where it cannot be cleaned.
The frack fluid is pumped down the well to liberate and collect the gas,
and about half of it is retrieved. The
half that is retrieved is eventually put in pits, which are many times unlined
because of the lack of regulation on tens of thousands of wells. Additionally, the frack fluid that comes back
up out of the well contains benzene and other carcinogens, brine,
radioactivity, and heavy metals, as Sandra Steingraber describes in “The Whole
Fracking Enchilada.” Finally, as stated
in the movie Gasland 2, about five
percent of cement-casings in wells break right after filling, which results in
methane spewing up into the atmosphere from the well. As Sandra Steingraber points out, methane
that escapes to the atmosphere unburned is about twenty times as bad for
climate change as carbon dioxide.
Nuclear power is also highly
controversial. Unlike fracking and coal,
it gets a lot of negative press and does not do much greenwashing. Yet, it is still funded and subsidized in
many areas of the world today. Nuclear
power essentially generates no greenhouse gases (except for in the mining of
the uranium), is incredibly efficient for the amount of energy that can be
released per unit mass of uranium, and can generate enough electricity to run
cities. On the other hand, it produces
tons and tons of radioactive material, either in the form of tailings when
mining for the uranium or in spent fuel rods and liquid plutonium waste. Additionally, it consists of another threat
that coal and fracking both do not have.
As Richard Bell points out in “Nuclear Power and the Earth,” the
technology for nuclear power plants is very similar to the power for nuclear
bombs. Although people call for the
“atoms for peace” instead of the “atoms for war,” a country having nuclear
power is a threat because that means they also have the power for nuclear
arms. Additionally, any mistakes or
accidents could lead to detonation, which could take the lives of tens or
hundreds of thousands of people.
Each of the major sources of
electricity discussed above has positives and many negatives. Although safer alternative energy sources are
being developed, they are not currently ready to take over for these three main
producers. So which one should be
supported? In other words, which one is
the least bad for the environment? I
would argue that hydraulic fracturing is the worst. Hydraulic fracturing poisons millions of
gallons of water per frack. Considering
people say that the next world war will be over water, and the fact that every
human, animal, and plant depends on clean water, I think preserving water is
the most important. I value this
resource the most. Between coal and
nuclear is hard, and is a question really of risk assessment. People view risk very differently. Originally, I would have supported nuclear
over coal because coal has a guaranteed negative effect every time it is
used. Nuclear has a lot less waste
compared to coal, and the chance of a “freak accident” is low. After reading David Ehrenfeld’s “When Risk
Assessment is Risky” article, my opinion has changed. One quote specifically hit me hard. A financial trader named Nassim Taleb said
“it does not matter how frequently [predictions succeed] if failure is too
costly to bear.” Although the chance of
a nuclear power plant exploding seems statistically low, if it did, it would
cause immense damage. Additionally,
Ehrenfeld argues that risk assessment cannot be done if the system is too
complex and tightly coupled to fully understand; therefore, Ehrenfeld has
convinced me that nuclear is not the electricity source I would like to support
either. In summary, I guess the cleanest
coal possible would be my preferred choice of electricity generation for the
majority of the United States, until we phase in the other alternatives. Natural gas recovered not from high volume
slick water hydraulic fracturing would also be acceptable.
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