Coal And Solar Energy : Coal Vs. Solar Power

Energy is an important part of life producing the power of movement, heat, and production of electricity in many different ways. Therefore, choosing the correct source of energy is important for the environment and humans. Renewable energy that produces electricity never runs out, causing a lower environmental impact. Solar, Biomass, Wind, Geothermal, and Hydropower energy should be used globally to produce electricity. On the other hand, producing electricity from nonrenewable energy sources can be very harmful to humans and the environment. Humans can easily be dependent on it, which may not be the best option when it comes to finance, efficiency, sustainability and more. Approximately 52% of the US electricity comes from polluting sources like natural gas, oil, nuclear, and hydropower that have a lot of disadvantages effecting the environment in a negative way.

As we go throughout life, we use various kinds of energy sources for our needs. Whether it be from solar energy to wind energy, there is a multitude of sources that allow us to do the things we do each and every day. Throughout the world, however, coal and nuclear power have risen to the

Nowadays, coal is still one of the greatest used energy to generate power in so many countries. Using coal in electricity generation is 93% in South African, 87% in Poland, 79% in China, 78% in Australia, 45% in USA, 41% in Germany, 58% in Israel etc. (Coal & Electricity) From the data above, even the developed countries use coal to generate power as the main source. In many developed countries, energy generation is still based on coal as a long-term source. In recent years, although there is an increasing number of equipment using gas and wind to generate the power, it is still lower than the proportion of coal-fired power generation. The reason why most countries choose coal as a main source to generate electricity, is that there are many advantages in using coal to generate electricity. First of all, coal is the

Most source of energy such as coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas do substantially more harm to our environment than good. As it mentioned in the film, these harmful energy source causes pollution, health problems, shortage of water, shortage of land, and causes global warming. Nevertheless, we could avoid or minimize these disasters by using green energy sources such as wind and solar power. Harnessing energy from solar and wind is the cleanest and most effective ways to generate electrical energy. In addition, it is cheap and produces no toxic pollution. Yet, there are some negative consequences of using these energies. For example, land use, habitat loss, and shortage of resources are some of the main effects of using these

During the time that humans have been living on earth the environment has evolved especially the way we have treated it. Now that we have found a large variation of energy sources we have effected it even more.

In order to comprehend why we need to shift to alternative energy sources, we must first review the history of fossil fuels and how it transitioned the world during an important era of history. Fossil fuels played an extremely significant role in the era of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution began in the eighteenth century. Fossil fuels were the ultimate ideal source of energy during the Industrial Revolution. Coal was especially used the most during the revolution. It burned “cleaner” and hotter than what wood did. The Industrial Revolution without a doubt expanded the use of coal. During the revolution, coal was used for steamships and with the escalating business of transporting goods across the country, it played a major

As a evergrowing country, we need reliable energy resources. We need sources that wouldn’t require a large plant, cause environmental effects, be cheap enough to afford, would be something that is easily replenished, and something that would be safe to use. For example, burning coal (a nonrenewable source) is not good for the environment. We are suffering consequences such as more holes in the Ozone layer from using more than needed fossil fuels. Pollution is also a highly equal problem we are facing.

The beginning of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century led to an exponential increase in our demand for energy to satisfy the growing needs of manufacturing, transport, production of raw materials, healthcare, and agriculture. Simple tasks are taken for granted such as “powering-up” the plethora of devices and gadgets that we “cannot live without” – such as our smart phones and computers. Whilst all of these things are central to our very existence on the planet, our increased dependence on energy has essentially been met to date by the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels, such as brown and black coal.

Today we rely on a majority of fossil fuels with a small percentage of solar or wind energy generation to power our comfortable living. With fossil fuels being our primary source of energy, we are releasing things such as lead into the atmosphere to be inhaled; coal has to be mined causing deforestation and additionally causes water contamination from mining water runoff, the same to be said with fracking.

Another great factor that makes solar energy better than coal is it is renewable unlike coal which is non-renewable or limited. If you don’t know what renewable energy is, it is energy that comes from a limitless energy source. Solar energy is so renewable because it comes from the sun which is always giving off energy. Since solar energy comes from the sun it an unlimited energy source. While many countries and regions have access to coal not all do but nearly every town has access to sunlight. For those who do not have access to coal have struggled to make economic development. “Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy 6.1 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years” (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). That means that the energy we get from the sun exceeds 35,000 times the amount of energy used by man.

Developments in technology are important to this topic and can help improve conditions. Elizabeth incorporated Cohan’s technology idea into the energy crises pointing out that economies are largely based on coal mining as we say in the movie about Ordos, China. New technology can help replace non-sustainable sources of energy like coal mining and lead to new forms of alternative energy. Elizabeth showed a chart of the prediction of 2050 where solar power and wind are the future of energy production for the United States. Her chart implements how new technology is projected to replace the non-sustainable forms of energy extraction. New technologies would also help economy to depend on multiple forms of energy not just one like coal. On the other hand the sources of funding for these technological improvements are hard to come by because of their expense and risk. The money required to develop these technologies comes from individuals that support idea of less harmful production. Time to develop technology improvements can take years to prefect and put into market place. Companies also would not have to use this technology in there production and the types of technological advance are not controlled. The car industry is the model example. Cars have become more efficient over the years due to improve technology and now electric cars are appearing again. However, electric cars are just old technology renew and they still rely on coal. Fuel-efficient cars just improve on a system that is not sustainable. Even thought technology is improving in the last couple years the pollution issue from these products has yet to be answered. The pollution problem from these has yet to be fixed and the world is still face with the same

Wind energy is safer for the environment versus burning coal because of the benefits wind energy provides. For example, wind energy does not emit any CO2 , and it has no ongoing fuel costs. Wind energy does not involve removing minerals and nutrients from the earth as does strip mining. Nor does wind energy contaminate ground water. Wind energy does not emit any airborne mercury. In addition, the burning of coal releases toxic fumes into the atmosphere and produces about 200 pounds of carbon dioxide per kilowatt of energy generated. This is very harmful to plants, animals, and the air we breathe. Wind energy is a renewable source of energy, whereas coal is a non-renewable fuel source.

These are major problems that need to be addressed, before suddenly we are without energy. We are not saying that we need to ban the use of fossil fuels, maybe we need to just start looking seriously into alternate energy sources. The most obvious source right now seems to be solar energy; however, there is another renewable resource that many people might not know about. Geothermal energy is a resource that does not harm the environment, and is not dependent on foreign trade ("Geothermal Heat Increases," 1998). No fuel is burned when the plants are operated. This cuts down on the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases formed during the combustion of fossil fuels, producing one-sixth the amount of carbon dioxide that natural gas plants do, and none of the nitrous oxide or sulfur bearing gases ("Geothermal Energy Technical Site," 1997). Geothermal energy is also easy on the land because there are no mineshafts, tunnels, open pits, waste heaps, or oil spills ("Geothermal Education Office,"

The most of global energy production produces from fossil fuel such as coal, oil and natural gas. The vast fossil fuels generate energy which use for many purposes for instant residential, transportation and industrial sectors. While the rate consumption of fossil fuel higher than their formation leads to oil price crisis. Another concern of fossil fuel combustion is the impact on the environment. Global warming is a significant problem which results in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. These problems drive researchers and societies to search alternative energy such as switching to renewable energy or carbon-free energy to replace fossil fuels. For example Nakata et al., (2011:465) show ‘low-carbon society’

For years man has relied on energy in order to be successful in life. The industrial revolution relied on coal for the new inventions brought into the world. Life as has never been the same since then. However since that time, there has been little done to improve on energy efficiency and humans still primarily rely on fossil fuels for energy. For over a hundred years the Earth has become more polluted and dirtier than ever before. Now, with new, innovative technology there is an opportunity to change that and to rely on renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The main source of energy for the world should be alternative energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.