I'm doing a debate on renewable energy....?

Question

...and I'm kinda stuck. My group has been assigned to find the advantages of solar power versus wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear. Only I can't really find anything! If you could maybe offer some advantages yourself or give me a website, it would be GREAT!! =)

Answer 1

Hi there, sounds like a great debate!

Hope some of these help:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/gene...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Solar-Energy-A...

http://www.solarenergyadvantages.org/

Blessed be x

Answer 2

The advantage goes to hydroelectric and nuclear power.  Solar power only works with a lot of sunlight.  If you drew a line from the top of Texas going coast to coast, everything south of that line would be able to benefit from solar power.  North of that line, forget it not beneficial.

Answer 3

This debate needs framing in the correct way. So essentially the others have a large environmental footprint. Nuclear biggest then wind and then hydro electric all needing individual structures, whereas solar can be added to existing buildings and take a small amount of space. This is pretty much the only real benefit here as they all have their drawbacks (what nuclear,  you say, drawbacks noo. . .)

Answer 4

It depends greatly on location and funding which resource is the best. In the US for example, there are many great location to put windfarms: Along the coastal regions and near the Great Lakes among other places. It is wonderful for Americans because they can afford the initial investment of building wind energy systems and they have many experts within the country who are able to make any necessary repairs to the windmills. In third world countries however clean energy is not subsidized by the government and the towns and villages are too poor to purchase even the smallest windmills. Think about it, in order to set up and run a windmill you need a turbine which is very hard to transport and expensive, a battery bank to story the energy which is probably the most expensive part of the whole system since wind does not blow fast enough to run the generator 100% of the time, and as I already mentioned a generator to produce mechanical energy that can be converted into electrical energy. Plus poor countries cannot afford to hire people to work on the windmills if they break and people like Engineers Without Borders who train locals do not understand that once a local in a poor village has that kind of technical training the person will usually leave to get a job where he or she can make more money with such skills and send money back to his or her family. In such countries a more robust (simple, reliable, and safe) and accessable method for energy generation is desirable. Another thing about windmills is that they are only guarenteed for 20 years and then they have to be replaced. I lived in a town called Hull in MA that got 12% of their town energy (as of 2005) from wind power and the town saved so much money, even though the wind was not always fast enough to efficiently run the generator and produce electricity. If you are interested you should check out the Cape Wind Project's site. Another interesting field of research here does not come from turbines at all but from a lot piece of material that will vibrate in the wind and produce energy without the concerns of killing birds or hitting flying vehicles.

Many experts believe hydrogen to be the one energy source that will revolution energy but yet there is still not an efficient method of producing the hydrogen. The idea is fantastic: hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and if humanity could harness its power we would have as much energy as we needed and we could get it from the ocean without polluting the environment. The generation of hydrogen now however generally comes from electrolysis (H2O -> (1/2)O2 + H2) and steam reformation which creates green house gasses. So much for clean energy. In addition, hydrogen is also hard to store and extremely combustable. After you consider all of these facts remember that you need pure water to run the fuel cells. Hydrogen is unquestionably renewable but the question here is whether or not it is desirable. Don't think I am down grading the prospective usefulness of hydrogen. I am just say a whole lot more research and development is needed to make it competitive with other sources of energy generation.

Nuclear is wonderful until you realize that in the long run it is very expensive (many argue that such plants never pay for themselves) and there is nowhere to store the waste that will satisfy everyone. In 1995, 32,000 metric tons of nuclear waste was produced. In 2015, the number is projected to be 75000 metric tons. But where does all of that waste go? Some of it was set aside to be buried in a mountain in Nevada but the state didn't want it there so it had to be disposed of elsewhere. We could shoot it off into space but you know how much pollution that would produce getting it out of our atmosphere?

Solar panels are the most expensive means of energy production used today(at about $3000 per kilowatt for the panel). These photovoltaic cells are also difficult to produce and easily stolen off of houses particularly in developing countries. People are working on flexible cells that could generate the same electricity for a fraction of the cost (these are not produced with silicon).

Passive solar however is probably the easiest method of producing renewable energy. The heating of water for to use directly or to pump through the walls and floors of a building for heating purposes is amazingly efficient. Other obvious ways of utilizing passive solar energy are the placement of windows on building and the colors and materials used that could prompt or inhibit the absorbtion of energy from the sun.

Another fact that you might want to look at is how many watts does each type of energy generally produce and whether or not that type of energy is good for comercial, domestic, town, city, or rural uses.

I hope this helps ;)

Answer 5

Solar is available to all. Wind and hydro are only practical in some areas. Nuclear will be dangerous LONG after this society has collapsed. A terrible legacy for our progeny!