Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy

Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy PDF Author: Otto Andersen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447155327
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
Energy technologies in the future will need to be based on renewable sources of energy and will, ultimately, need to be sustainable. This book provides insight into unintended, negative impacts and how they can be avoided. In order to steer away from the pitfalls and unintended effects, it is essential that the necessary knowledge is available to the developers and decision makers engaged in renewable energy. The value of this book lies in its presentation of the unintended health and environmental impacts from renewable energies. The book presents results from cross-disciplinary research on the implementation of alternative fuels in the transport sector, namely hydrogen, electricity and biodiesel. This is followed by an assessment of environmental impacts from the production of solar cells. Critical reviews on the use of nanotechnology and nanomaterials in the energy technologies is then provided, with the formation of nanoparticles during combustion of bio-blended diesel and their toxic effects, discussed in detail.

Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy

Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy PDF Author: Otto Andersen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447155327
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 94

Get Book

Book Description
Energy technologies in the future will need to be based on renewable sources of energy and will, ultimately, need to be sustainable. This book provides insight into unintended, negative impacts and how they can be avoided. In order to steer away from the pitfalls and unintended effects, it is essential that the necessary knowledge is available to the developers and decision makers engaged in renewable energy. The value of this book lies in its presentation of the unintended health and environmental impacts from renewable energies. The book presents results from cross-disciplinary research on the implementation of alternative fuels in the transport sector, namely hydrogen, electricity and biodiesel. This is followed by an assessment of environmental impacts from the production of solar cells. Critical reviews on the use of nanotechnology and nanomaterials in the energy technologies is then provided, with the formation of nanoparticles during combustion of bio-blended diesel and their toxic effects, discussed in detail.

The Power of Renewables

The Power of Renewables PDF Author: Chinese Academy of Engineering
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309160006
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.

Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation

Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation PDF Author: Christopher E. Moorman
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421432730
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Brings together disparate conversations about wildlife conservation and renewable energy, suggesting ways these two critical fields can work hand in hand. Renewable energy is often termed simply "green energy," but its effects on wildlife and other forms of biodiversity can be quite complex. While capturing renewable resources like wind, solar, and energy from biomass can require more land than fossil fuel production, potentially displacing wildlife habitat, renewable energy infrastructure can also create habitat and promote species health when thoughtfully implemented. The authors of Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation argue that in order to achieve a balanced plan for addressing these two crucially important sustainability issues, our actions at the nexus of these fields must be directed by current scientific information related to the ecological effects of renewable energy production. Synthesizing an extensive, rapidly growing base of research and insights from practitioners into a single, comprehensive resource, contributors to this volume • describe processes to generate renewable energy, focusing on the Big Four renewables—wind, bioenergy, solar energy, and hydroelectric power • review the documented effects of renewable energy production on wildlife and wildlife habitats • consider current and future policy directives, suggesting ways industrial-scale renewables production can be developed to minimize harm to wildlife populations • explain recent advances in renewable power technologies • identify urgent research needs at the intersection of renewables and wildlife conservation Relevant to policy makers and industry professionals—many of whom believe renewables are the best path forward as the world seeks to meet its expanding energy needs—and wildlife conservationists—many of whom are alarmed at the rate of renewables-related habitat conversion—this detailed book culminates with a chapter underscoring emerging opportunities in renewable energy ecology. Contributors: Edward B. Arnett, Brian B. Boroski, Regan Dohm, David Drake, Sarah R. Fritts, Rachel Greene, Steven M. Grodsky, Amanda M. Hale, Cris D. Hein, Rebecca R. Hernandez, Jessica A. Homyack, Henriette I. Jager, Nicole M. Korfanta, James A. Martin, Christopher E. Moorman, Clint Otto, Christine A. Ribic, Susan P. Rupp, Jake Verschuyl, Lindsay M. Wickman, T. Bently Wigley, Victoria H. Zero

Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences PDF Author: George Erickson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781079512588
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
In Unintended Consequences, best-selling author George Erickson exposes the lie that created our extreme radiation safety standards, the damage those regulations have caused and his dismay with "greens" who profit from promoting 33% efficient, carbon-reliant solar panels and bird, bat and human-killing, CO2-producing windmills, but oppose environment-friendly, CO2-free, 90% efficient safe, nuclear power. With startling images and input from engineers, physicists and specialists in nuclear medicine, the author urges closed-minded organizations like the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace to emulate real environmentalists like Dr. James Hansen, James Lovelock and Stewart Brand, who support nuclear power as the safest, most efficient way to produce the 24/7 electricity we must have to combat Climate/Ocean Change.Dr. Alex Cannara, BS & MS EE, PhD Mathematical Methods, Menlo Park, California.

Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy

Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy PDF Author: Frank R. Spellman
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482249472
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Renewable Energy Has a Good Side and a Bad Side Evaluate BothAll energy sources affect the environment in which we live. While fossil fuels may essentially do more harm, renewable energy sources can also pose a threat to the environment. Allowing for the various renewable energy sources: solar, wind, hydro, biomass, and geothermal, Environmental I

Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation PDF Author: Ottmar Edenhofer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139248709
Category : Climate change mitigation
Languages : en
Pages : 1076

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Book Description
This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SRREN) assesses the potential role of renewable energy in the mitigation of climate change. It covers the six most important renewable energy sources - bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean and wind energy - as well as their integration into present and future energy systems. It considers the environmental and social consequences associated with the deployment of these technologies and presents strategies to overcome technical as well as non-technical obstacles to their application and diffusion. SRREN brings a broad spectrum of technology-specific experts together with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, it presents an impartial assessment of the current state of knowledge: it is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. SRREN is an invaluable assessment of the potential role of renewable energy for the mitigation of climate change for policymakers, the private sector and academic researchers.

The Green Paradox

The Green Paradox PDF Author: Hans-Werner Sinn
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262300583
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A leading economist develops a supply-side approach to fighting climate change that encourages resource owners to leave more of their fossil carbon underground. The Earth is getting warmer. Yet, as Hans-Werner Sinn points out in this provocative book, the dominant policy approach—which aims to curb consumption of fossil energy—has been ineffective. Despite policy makers' efforts to promote alternative energy, impose emission controls on cars, and enforce tough energy-efficiency standards for buildings, the relentlessly rising curve of CO2 output does not show the slightest downward turn. Some proposed solutions are downright harmful: cultivating crops to make biofuels not only contributes to global warming but also uses resources that should be devoted to feeding the world's hungry. In The Green Paradox, Sinn proposes a new, more pragmatic approach based not on regulating the demand for fossil fuels but on controlling the supply. The owners of carbon resources, Sinn explains, are pre-empting future regulation by accelerating the production of fossil energy while they can. This is the “Green Paradox”: expected future reduction in carbon consumption has the effect of accelerating climate change. Sinn suggests a supply-side solution: inducing the owners of carbon resources to leave more of their wealth underground. He proposes the swift introduction of a “Super-Kyoto” system—gathering all consumer countries into a cartel by means of a worldwide, coordinated cap-and-trade system supported by the levying of source taxes on capital income—to spoil the resource owners' appetite for financial assets. Only if we can shift our focus from local demand to worldwide supply policies for reducing carbon emissions, Sinn argues, will we have a chance of staving off climate disaster.

Renewable Energy Policy

Renewable Energy Policy PDF Author: Paul Komor
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595312187
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Renewable energy is the key to the future of humankind. Wind power, solar (photovoltaic) energy, geothermal power, and other forms of renewables can help solve our most pressing environmental problems, including global climate change. But how do we move these promising technologies out of the laboratory and into widespread use? Renewable Energy Policy shows what public policy can-and cannot-do to help tap renewables' promise. Renewable Energy Policy takes a pragmatic, nuts-and-bolts look at the myriad government efforts to promote renewables, and reports back on what works, what doesn't, and why. In clear, jargon-free language, Renewable Energy Policy shows how and why some policies have achieved impressive results, and others have failed. Skillfully interweaving technology, economics, and politics, Paul Komor reveals how the best of policy ideas often end up with unintended results. If you want to know how much wind power really costs (Chapter 2), why Germany's renewables laws are "crude but effective" (Chapter 8), or the three reasons why the UK's green energy market is a flop (Chapter 4), then you need to read Renewable Energy Policy.

The Conundrum

The Conundrum PDF Author: David Owen
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101560134
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Look out for David Owen's next book, Where the Water Goes. The Conundrum is a mind-changing manifesto about the environment, efficiency and the real path to sustainability. Hybrid cars, fast trains, compact florescent light bulbs, solar panels, carbon offsets: Everything you've been told about living green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100 mpg car are dangerous fantasies. We are consumers, and we like to consume green and efficiently. But David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross purposes to our true goal - living sustainably and caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem. Efforts to improve efficiency and increase sustainable development only exacerbate the problems they are meant to solve, more than negating the environmental gains. We have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption. David Owen's The Conundrum is an elegant nonfiction narrative filled with fascinating information and anecdotes takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. This is a book about the environment that will change how you look at the world. We should not be waiting for some geniuses to invent our way out of the energy and economic crisis we're in. We already have the technology and knowledge we need to live sustainably. But will we do it? That is the conundrum.

Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects

Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309134080
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
The generation of electricity by wind energy has the potential to reduce environmental impacts caused by the use of fossil fuels. Although the use of wind energy to generate electricity is increasing rapidly in the United States, government guidance to help communities and developers evaluate and plan proposed wind-energy projects is lacking. Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects offers an analysis of the environmental benefits and drawbacks of wind energy, along with an evaluation guide to aid decision-making about projects. It includes a case study of the mid-Atlantic highlands, a mountainous area that spans parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. This book will inform policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels.