Renewable energy and the environment

Global climate change has caused the world to become more circumspect when analyzing the future of energy generation. All energy sources have some impact on our environment. Fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—do substantially more harm than renewable energy sources by most measures, including air and water pollution, damage to public health, wildlife and habitat loss, water use, land use, and global warming emissions.

The Benefits of Renewable Energy Use

However, renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and hydropower also have environmental impacts, some of which are significant. The intensity of environmental impacts varies depending on the specific technology used, the geographic location, and a number of other factors. By understanding the current and potential environmental issues associated with each renewable energy source, we can learn to effectively avoid or minimize these impacts as they become a larger portion of our electric supply.

Wind power

Harnessing power from the wind is one of the cleanest and most sustainable ways to generate electricity as it produces no toxic pollution or global warming emissions. Wind is also abundant, inexhaustible, and affordable, which makes it a viable and large-scale alternative to fossil fuels.
Despite its vast potential, there are a variety of environmental impacts associated with wind power generation that should be recognized and mitigated.

Solar power

Like wind power, the sun provides a tremendous resource for generating clean and sustainable electricity. The environmental impacts associated with solar power can include land use and habitat loss, water use, and the use of hazardous materials in manufacturing, though the types of impacts vary greatly depending on the scale of the system and the technology used—photovoltaic (PV) solar cells or concentrating solar thermal plants (CSP).

Geothermal energy

The most widely developed type of geothermal power plant (known as hydrothermal plants) is located near geologic “hot spots” where hot molten rock is close to the earth’s crust and produces hot water. In other regions enhanced geothermal systems (or hot dry rock geothermal), which involve drilling into the earth’s surface to reach deeper geothermal resources, can allow broader access to geothermal energy. Geothermal plants also differ in terms of the technology they use to convert the resource to electricity (direct steam, flash, or binary) and the type of cooling technology they use (water-cooled and air-cooled). Environmental impacts differ depending on the conversion and cooling technology used.

Now is the time to install a solar energy system!

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For more information relating to going solar, don't forget to visit our solar blog section for more handy guides and articles