Darker Sides of Green
Technology is fascinating. Conceive an idea and translate it into something tangible, repeatedly, and with little to no errors.
We do this continuously concerning generating electricity. Each moment brings us a new tactic towards improving efficiency. Each generation advances power production one step closer to idealized green energy.
Limited Perceptions
One unfortunate side effect of our technological development involves the use of marketing and capitalism. We market portions of an idea and capitalize on the best parts of a technology. We do not consider the impact of a product's entire lifecycle. If we did, there would still be concerns, but they would be manageable.
No technology, no matter how efficient, is genuinely green when considering the product lifecycle. Everything generates waste though some produce vastly less waste and pollution than others. It is imperative to recognize this and the advertised language that seeks to deceive you.
Today's article focuses on four "green" technologies. Technologies such as these release zero greenhouse gases while producing gigawatts of electrical energy. Their true contribution towards climate change and waste management comes outside of producing electricity.
Solar Power
Solar power is the most popular green technology with the lowest carbon footprint during daylight hours. It seamlessly converts sunlight to electrical energy. We employ different forms of solar technology whose scope depends on the number of users requiring power. Solar energy alone can supply the world's needs if we can safely and efficiently capture that source.
There are just two "small" obstacles we need to tackle to make solar all-encompassing.
We Need that Backup
Solar power is adequate while the sun is shining. It's possible to supply the energy needs of an entire city with solar, but only during the day. You can't eliminate the need for fossil fuels with this limitation. You can only reduce it.
Battery technology would be the vehicle that gets solar utilizes continuously and globally. Yet, battery technology isn't anywhere it needs to be for affordability. I feel it will get there. It just won't get there anytime soon.
Mass transportation, the airline industry, or anything else requiring significant amounts of movement doesn't use solar. And it won't either unless some phenomenal advances in solar technologies occur.
Costs of solar technology production showed steady declines over the decades. MIT, through funding by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), revealed a number of factors contributing to such a significant drop in costs. One glaring cost that MIT, and most of the globe, ignored was the expense involved with solar's end-of-life management.
Waste
Current business models do not allow for the existence of a product that lasts forever. We need to know how to recycle the wastes we can and dump the ones we can't. Ideally, any waste we produce should be biodegradable, but we know that's not always possible. If disposal costs exceed costs of development, then solar will be discarded and instead created from new.
What about the wastes? You have toxic components needed to create each panel. Depending on the waste, you may need to handle the obsolescent panels with special care-that special care will cost a lot of money. Our current pace in generating solar waste may exceed the projected 78-million tons before reaching the year 2050.
Solar panels won't last forever, and neither will the subsidies reduce the prices to a reasonable level for purchase. The market, as it stands, does not include costs of waste management into those of solar panels. Doing so wouldn't help the market. The result is tons of solar panel waste discarded into landfills or exported to poorer countries that don't even use them.
Wind Power
Wind Energy appears to have the lowest pollutive and environmental processes in this article. The assessment includes both development and end-of-life conditions.
The most significant impact of wind energy involves public health specific to sound, vibration, and light flickering. People complain about the sound these turbines generate. However, companies can reduce sounds and vibrations by improving upon blade construction. Regarding light flickering, there doesn't appear to be an issue, but companies heroically suggest people can plant trees or build shades. The biggest problem with Wind Energy is that which will plague the solar industry in the times that come, namely: waste.
Once again, we prove ready to pursue a technology without considering its product lifecycle. We have the technology to recycle wind blades, but do we recycle them? Not always. It's costly to do so in such a young industry. The concern was implementing the wind projects, not disposing of them. I wonder if wind companies will abandon the turbines to pursue newer lands to build their monoliths.
Hydroelectric Power
Hydroelectric power is as clean as they come AFTER everything is constructed. Before that point, it is hugely disruptive. First, you need to clear the area of the construction site before it's ready to start operations. If, for instance, communities live in those areas, they will need to be relocated.
Once the dam becomes operational, irreversible destruction occurs because of the resulting flooding:
- Forests
- Agricultural land
- Wildlife
The dam needs a reservoir. You have to make room to store water that needs to get passed through the dam for power production.
Nuclear Power - Bonus Discussion
Overview
The regulations involved in regulating Nuclear Power are very restrictive and for a good reason. Failure to abide by basic human performance measures, like in Chernobyl, for instance, to disaster felt across the globe. Attention to detail, for example, with Three Mile Island, may have prevented a partial meltdown. Re-evaluation of flooding walls or placement of diesel generators, like with Fukushima, may have prevented that power plant's meltdown.
When coupling the valid stigma about nuclear bombs with the concept of nuclear power, the fears of the public may not be unwarranted. For the technologies I've studied and worked within the United States, nuclear power is safe and reliable. The electricity produced is as clean as solar. However, like solar, wind, and hydropower, there must be issues adequately addressed to reduce problems future generations must address.
The development of a nuclear power plant requires the consumption of fossil fuels. You need to convert raw materials into construction materials. We need specialized and expensive transportation to move essential components. We need to put everything together. In many ways, it's a typical construction project. It's the materials created after fuel expires that is the problem.
Refueling
Periodically, nuclear reactors shut down to refuel the reactor core. A certain amount of fuel assemblies are removed and placed in a spent fuel pool. After several years of decay, these fuel assemblies are then transferred to something called dry cask storage. Depending on the power plant, fuel assemblies will be stored dry and within shielded canisters above or below ground.
The shielding on these containers effectively reduces radiation levels of the fuel assemblies from beyond lethal to slightly above background radiation levels. I'm amazed every time I see them.
Eventually, these fuel casks will get transferred to an interim storage facility. Two companies in the U.S. have submitted license applications to the NRC to provide this service. The idea is to maintain the spent fuel in these interim facilities until a permanent long-term storage location becomes available. The problem is that no one knows when such a facility will exist.
Radioactive Decay
It will take thousands upon thousands of years for high-level radioactive waste of this type to become less radioactive. Science recognizes this problem; however, the solutions conceived border on the fringe and supernatural, such as methods to enhance radioactive decay:
- Utilizing high intensity lasers
- Supercooling radioactive sources enclosed in metallic containers
Experiments involving the use of lasers don't even appear to be outside of the conceptual phase. However, there has been work with the second option-cooling radioactive sources enclosed in metallic containers in 2006. In many cases, scientists confirmed the results. Later research with higher accuracy equipment refuted those results. Neither option will reach large-scale testing any time soon.
In Closing
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Humanity has a direct impact on the environment. The laws that govern our world attest to it. When considering pollution of surrounding waters, local, state, and national laws provide limitations on what can they can dump. It's impossible to remove all pollutants from an area, so governments want to limit it to concentrations that will not harm its citizens-limit being a relative term.
An informed public and honest discussion would put the proper amount of pressure to utilize a product's lifecycle in determining how technology gets used.
Thank you for reading and following on throughout my Hive journey.
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Hydroelectric and nuclear are the best options for energy right now.
Hydroelectric is the cleanest, even with construction, and has the ability to produce electricity 24/7, unlike wind and solar. Damns built 100 years ago are still working.
Nuclear advances could basically negate all the negative ideas about radioactive waste and such. But, the PR that works against nuclear keeps people away from supporting it.
But, the biggest gain to energy production will be when people push off the gravity based theories of universe creation and accept the electric/plasma universe theory and look to find ways to harvest the energy that is floating all around us.
Thank you for your response and opinion. I also feel that hydro and nuclear are the cleanest forms of energy during their operational cycle, at least. These forms of green energy can supply the needs of cities. Nuclear has the proven capability to provide that much-needed baseload energy. As you stated, hydroelectric power withstands the test of time as well.
Regarding the negative PR, I just don't know. Of all the technologies available for power generation, nuclear is the one that can affect regions of land.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission directed all U.S. power plants to implement lessons learned from Fukushima so if that happens here, each site can mitigate the problems with a loss of power. I can't speak for other countries.
I agreeing with your position on nuclear despite what I wrote. The industry has a lot of work on its hands but, at least within the U.S., new power plants are being built.
The melt down issues that happened at the 3 nuclear sites are fixed with the current generation of nuclear plants. And they also produce less waste, because they can reuse spent nuclear rods. But, because of accidents, like you listed, most people do not support more nuclear plants.
If you want to see the future, look at the Safire Project.
Ugh! I'm so disappointed at the missed opportunity. I wish I knew about Safire before I wrote this post. It's fantastic tech for sure. I haven't finished watching the video yet, but I will tonight. Thank you very much for sharing.
I look forward to commenting on it when I'm done watching it.
I'm still amazed at this technology. I'm also amazed at how this just didn't pop up in any of my searches. Thank you for discussing it and introducing me to this technology. I've decided to write about it with special thanks to you, sir.
You would have to be into fringe science to know about it.
Fringe science...not pseudoscience? Apologies for thinking out loud as I've had a couple of distractions working from home this morning.
When you write fringe science are you speaking about something that isn't popular and highly speculative? If so, then yeah I would agree with your statement. I try not to get overly excited about a thing when it appears I would have to wait long periods of time to learn about its progress or implementation.
There were articles I read, for instance, that hinted at the possibility of raising radioactive decay rates. I found that to be incredibly fascinating, but I could barely find any other information regarding the observations. It never ceases to amaze me about the resistance some areas can receive.
A couple of years later, following the original research, I found experiments that refuted such findings. I guess I got disenchanted because it meant more resistance to the concept. Because I felt it would just add years to the concept I move along to something else.
Correct.
Since the electric/plasma universe people are still looked down upon by main stream scientist, anything they do is considered fringe.
Since the Safire Project has managed to do what they expected and repeat those results, they are not pseudoscience. But, because they were considered pseudoscience, they had a bit of difficulty in getting funding for their research. If the next steps they plan on taking with what their experiments have revealed come to fruition, then their backers will become very rich or targets of the energy giants.
For, I don't know how long, there have been many many experiments in finding Dark Matter. None have succeeded. All have been dis-proven by electric/plasma universe theories. Yet, only Dark Matter/Black Hole research grants still print out the money.
I agree with this. It's the most realistic option right now. But, the narrative is against it. And, the "green now" crowd doesn't help either.
Meanwhile, some countries like China and India decided to go for the nuclear route because of the demand from their massive population.
These two should not be mentioned on the same page in my opinion. While hydroelectric power is very clean, nuclear is very much the opposite. Just think about the nuclear waste and nuclear radiation, including disasters, like Chernobyl.
Or even attacks, like on Hiroshima.
Everyone can say anything, but nuclear is not clean at all.
As you can see on the examples above, people were not careful enough with it in the past.
If people will not be careful enough in the future, nuclear things will ruin many more places on the planet. It could easily ruin the whole planet, if it would go out of hands.
The same could not be said for hydroelectric power.
What does HIroshima look like today?
What does Chernobyl look like today?
A nuclear bomb and a nuclear energy reactor have two different purposes. The technology for nuclear reactors is way beyond the technology used for Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.
Wrong questions.
The proper question would rather be:
Would you live in any of them?
Probably yes in Hiroshima, because that is safe. Approximately 1.194 million people lives there.
And definitely no to Chernobyl.
The looks does not tell you anything. The nuclear radiation is invisible.
Yes, that is true. The first is to intentionally destroy something, the second is to make energy. But do not forget the fact that both are able to destroy the environment.
I would live in Hiroshima or Fukushima. I would NOT live in Chernobyl. The clean-up efforts between the two countries are vastly different.
For example, shortly after Fukushima occurred, clean-up efforts began. At some point in the future, they will be able to fully repopulate the area.
I think Russia just condemned Chernobyl with exception to sealing off the power plant. However, the conditions for both disasters were different so I don't know the difficulty involved with such a massive cleanup.
Thank you very much for your input and engagement!
You brought up a great point regarding hydroelectric power and nuclear energy. The two areas shouldn't be included on the same page, but I felt they must be in keeping with the article's theme. The point I tried to present was that ALL forms of power have their adverse impacts; although, the effects of one may be greater than the other.
Regarding nuclear's "clean energy," I refer to media statements about the technology being emission-free. Yes, it's emission-free of greenhouse gases, but we can agree it is far from it from a product lifecycle perspective.
Hydroelectric power, during production, may not generate the same level of waste as nuclear power, but it does have its impacts. Take the Three Gorges Dam, for example. Is the electricity produced via this method free of environmental effects? I would say no due to at least the forced relocation of human beings to an area without their decision. I'm not as versed in hydro as I am in nuclear, so it's difficult for me to discuss their long-term impacts.
On the other hand, nuclear power also produces electricity that, at least like hydro, is emissions-free. The public and industry do adequately realize problems with radioactive waste. Those fears are transparent and available for scrutiny.
I look forward to engaging with you more. Thank you again!
I think we're on t he right track. There are windturbines without blades. Solar energy and energy storage keeps getting more efficient. (Even bitcoinmining has been used to make use of the superfluous energy created at daylight) Electric vehicles get longer ranges and shorter loading times.
We're aware of the dark side and we're continously working on remedies.
The public pressure for climate change actions are definitely helping. The bladeless wind turbines are an amazing development. It will eliminate the problems I wrote about.
Even nuclear improves at a constant pace. From system performance to safety designs. Let's just hope another freak event like an underwater earthquake doesn't deep-six the industry. My biggest gripe with the industry is how we wish to handle the end waste. It's probably why Australia never allowed the implementation of nuclear power.
Isn't the problem same as usual: funding and profit. Many people are aware of the waste and disposal issues, but solving them doesn't seem the most profitable thing to research right now. Like you said, public pressure can help pushing these research, but somebody has to foot the bill eventually, and nobody wants to.
In spite of its bad rep, I'm hopeful for nuclear. I remember as a kid in my home country (France) seeing commercials bragging about the fact 75% of our energy was from nuclear. But it was many years ago, I have no idea about the ratio now. That will give me some things to look up, thanks!
Funding and profits are songs for the ages. I look at what's happened over the last two years with COVID and I know that if it is desirable, the impossible is achievable.
Almost 3/4 of France's electrical capability still comes from Nuclear Power. I read about their processes in college. They utilize the full scope uranium life cycle in their system. From cradle to grave, France uses that fuel for its technology.
It's too bad we used nuclear power for war. What wonders would the world behold? Safer and more efficient operations? I believe it. I'm certain we would also have been using Thorium in lieu of Uranium.