Pros and Cons for Water, Nuclear, Geothermal, and Solar?

Question

This is for a science project and i am stuck. Please list as many as you can

Answer 1

The Pros for Water or Dams:

1.  Cheap

2.  Clean

3.  Safe

4.  Efficient

The Cons for Water or Dams:

1.  Displaces many animals from their natural habitat

2.  Need long transmission lines to carry the power to where it's needed.

Pros for Nuclear Power:

1.  Portable

2.  Reliable

3.  Efficient

Cons for Nuclear Power

1.  Dangerous waste products

2.  Environmental hazardous

Pros for Geothermal:

1.  Cheap

2.  Clean

3.  Environmentally safe

Cons for Geothermal:

1.  Not suitable for all location.

Pros for Solar and Wind:

1.  Eco-friendly

2.  Safe

3.  Clean

Cons for Solar and Wind:

1.  Expensive Start up Cost

2.  Not for all areas.

Answer 2

80 gbp million going here in the UK

http://www.iwcp.co.uk/News/ISLAND_BIDS_F...

Answer 3

Nuclear doesn't create greenhouse gases, but has many other problems.

  No accountability

"Civilian nuclear power producers benefit greatly from shifting a substantial portion of their liability for radioactive releases from accidents or attacks away from owners and investors and onto the taxpayer and the surrounding population."

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ten_most_...

"The nuclear industry has long enjoyed limited liability for nuclear accidents under the Price-Anderson Act, which ensures that taxpayers, not industry, will pay for damages in the event of a serious accident."

Already heavily subidized.

2006  from  http://www.earthtrack.net/earthtrack/lib...

"Federal subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8 cents per kWh (levelized), and could well be the determining factor driving the construction of new nuclear power plants.  $9 billion per year in the U.S."

Nuclear doesn't make us energy independent.

"We import 65 percent of our oil, but 90 percent of our uranium. At a time when state and federal leadership has set goals for "energy independence," reliance on nuclear power would mean depending on technology that requires fuel imported from overseas. Moreover, according to MIT scientists, there is less global supply of enriched uranium than commonly projected and the price has increased more than tenfold over the last five years."   Clean Wisconsin

"The United States and Russia signed a deal that will boost Russian uranium imports to supply the U.S. nuclear industry, the Commerce Department said Friday….

The new agreement permits Russia to supply 20 percent of US reactor fuel until 2020 and to supply the fuel for new reactors quota-free.

"So if, under a President McCain, we build a bunch of new nuclear reactors -- they could be fueled 100 percent by Russia.

"I can almost hear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin saying, "Excellent." "

from:  http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/...

It isn't safe.

"A report from Argonne National Lab concluded that aircraft crashes could subject nuclear plants to numerous multiple failures that could lead to "total meltdown" even without direct damage to the containment structure."

Plus we would have to cart radioactive waste all over the country to get it to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for disposal.  And that ain't cheap

"Part of our electric rates go to payments to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, which is intended to fund the construction of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada and pay for transportation of waste to the proposed disposal site. To date, Wisconsin customers have paid about $600 million into this fund."  

   That's just one state.

"Nuclear plant owners are responsible for costs to dismantle retired units, dispose of waste, and decontaminate the site. Each unit has its own decommissioning trust fund, paid for by customers. Wisconsin ratepayers have spent $1.5 billion for the eventual decommissioning of the Point Beach, Kewaunee, and Genoa plants."      

Again, that's just Wisconsin.

"Estimates of the cost to construct nuclear power plants are as high as $4,000 per kilowatt, as compared to about $1,400 per kilowatt for wind projects."

Solar and wind could provide the majority of our electricity.  

Read this article to see what solar can do.

Scientific American  A Solar Grand Plan

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

And go to Green Wombat to see what already is happening in California and Arizona with solar power plants.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

Here's what one solar thermal power plant company says.

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

and

"The same acre can produce 10 times as much energy from wind as it can from corn ethanol, 180,000 miles per acre per year. But both corn ethanol and wind power pale in comparison with solar photovoltaic, which can produce more than 2 million miles worth of transport per acre per year."   http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1454...

Some links to solar thermal companies.

http://www.ausra.com

http://www.infiniacorp.com/main.php

http://www.skyfuel.com/

http://www.solucar.es/sites/solar/en/ind...

http://www.esolar.com/

http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/

  Another promising alternative energy source is methane gathered from manure and other organic waste.

Here's an example of what it can do.

"Wild Rose Dairy in Webster Township, WI is home to an innovative renewable energy facility powered by cow manure and other organic waste. The farm is home to 900 dairy cows, and an on-site anaerobic digester creates methane-rich biogas from their waste, which is used to generate 750 kilowatts of electricity per hour—enough to power 600 local homes 24/7."

"Environmental Power’s Huckabay Ridge is the largest renewable natural gas plant in North America, if not the world. Huckabay Ridge generates methane-rich biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, conditions it to natural gas standards and distributes it through a commercial pipeline. The purified biogas, called RNG®, is generated by Environmental Power’s subsidiary, Microgy, and is a branded, renewable, pipeline quality methane product."

This can also be done at landfills and sewage treatment plants.  The cleanest way to use the methane is in fuel cells.

Fuel Cell Energy  makes utility scale fuel cells that can run on natural gas or methane at power plants.  Much cleaner than burning the gas, although not as clean as a pure hydrogen fuel cell.

Check out what's being done with wind in Europe.

Hydro power is clean, but we have to be careful that we don't kill off runs of salmon for instance.  this is already a big problem with existing dams.

One little known fact is that the forest needs the salmon for it's health.  That's right, animals eat the salmon that have come up stream to spawn, and then they deposit their droppings throughout the forest.  This was proven in a debate over logging interests and salmon habitat in British Columbia.