Thursday, October 30, 2014

Mainstream Resources Versus Dave Renne Renewables

By Roseann Hudson


The Fermi Paradox tells us that intelligent species always tend to destroy themselves. Such truth can never be more emphasized the way we have ruined our environment, the price to pay for our progress. It is ironic that we strive to find new ways to avoid our demise by trying very hard to save the planet while we pillage its resources in order to maintain our very demanding lifestyles.

We have imagined doomsday as zombie invasions, cosmic collisions, and the like, but the closest thing to home is our fear that the power grid will collapse and turn our world into an award winning dystopian novel. So we took a long hard look at our conventional energy production and decided that oh, we should have Dave Renne Renewables because sustainable energy can satisfy our power greed and at the same time they can save the planet. The bad news is, renewables are not at all green, we might as well just label them as miscellaneous ways of producing technology fodder.

Renewable energy was popularized when we realized we might run out of resources if we stick to the old school fossil fuel thing. Hence, even though renewables are generally expensive, greenies looked forward to sustainables, thinking it is the ultimate answer to saving Mother Earth while we feed our power hunger. Nope.

Fossil fuels have long been notorious for their environmental hazards. Known in the form of petroleum, natural gas and coal, they are to be blamed for oil spills and the excessive emissions of carbon dioxide, which disturbs the greenhouse effect and the carbon budget. They are cheaper, but because we thought sustainable energy is green, we opened our wallets and the following is what we get for our money.

While the sun can sustain us for perhaps another 4 billion years when it comes to producing power, it cannot justify the harmful effects of its production. Solar fuel is dependent on water deposits, and we know that water is now an endangered commodity. Its solar panels require the help of coal in order to be created, and the process of making them results in hazardous sludge and the emission of much more dangerous greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexaflouride, nitrogen triflouride, and hexaflourethane.

Geothermal power depends on groundwater and is replenished by rainshowers and storms, so they are considered as sustainable. Yet the construction of geothermal plants have long contributed to deforestation and destruction of natural habitat. Apparently, you cannot call that environment friendly.

Wind power seems to be the second most well known sustainable. But the reason why the poster children for wind energy, the Danes, still have flat carbon dioxide emissions is because of their near zero population growth, not the use of windpower. Also, the materials needed to build turbines are neodymium and dysprosium, which are rare earth metals. Because they are found in low concentrations and are difficult to extract, they are extracted via sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, and hydrochloric acid, and are heated and vacuumed using a lot of coal, resulting in toxic water.

If you are pondering on tidal energy, think again. Dams bring sediment and it ruins marine wildlife the same way geothermal energy does with land animals and plants. Biomass also require a lot of land for its power crops, decreasing the land area needed for natural habitats and food.

In conclusion, both renewable and non renewable power are not green fuel as opposed to the claim that one is better than the other. It is like saying that paper bags are greener than plastic bags. The only way to help our environment while sustaining power is the conserve energy.




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