What are negative effects of alternative energy...for solar, wind, tidal, ethanol, geothermal, and fuel cells?

Question

What are negative effects of alternative energy...for solar, wind, tidal, ethanol, geothermal, and fuel cells?

Answer 1

Solar power generation does require space, and if you want to use it at night you need to store it in a battery. All batteries have toxic chemicals, except that some are much worse than others. These batteries can be recycled, but there is always some pollution at the source (the mine).

Passive solar heat simply requires something like barrels of water to absorb heat during the day and release it at night. This takes up space, and the barrels have to be made out of something that conducts heat well, such as steel. Steel mills are dirty.

Wind generation on a small scale is very clean (parts still need to be oiled, and the oil has to come from a well, but other than this wind power is very clean). I think wind turbines are elegant, and they can be fitted with lights and alarms to prevent birds colliding with them.

I can't even imagine any downsides to tidal power, or geothermal. Iceland has been using geothermal power for decades and as a result people there spend very little for heat and electiricity. As for fuel cells, they're not as advanced as they need to be, but the promise is wonderufl.

Ethanol is a problem. It's a less efficient fuel than gasoline (which means you need to burn more of it), but it is less toxic and less explosive. It's not a good idea to raise corn to turn it into ethanol, as corn is a food source. It's much better to use switchgrass and other crops that grow like weeds or, like wood chips, are a waste product.

Answer 2

Everybody missed the point, Renewable Energy is the best way to make power.  It's just that people have a mind set that it can't be done.  It's OK to buy a $50k car or SUV, but photo voltaic panels would be out of the question.  The only negative issues are that one has to pay up front for RE, with the usual way of doing things, you pay over time, and the cost goes up and up and up.

Answer 3

too expensive

Answer 4

no negative affects, besises ethanol, it will make the price of corn go way way up, and we use corn in alot of things, so it will drive prices up for many many products, plus with the overpopulation of the world happening so rapidly, the food we do grow should be eaten not burned, there are other alternatives to corn, that are still plants, renewable and all that, but wind, solar, tidal, geo therm, and feul cells are nothing but good, nothing but benefits, nothing but extending the amount of time humanity has on the planet, while it is still a liveable place, cause that time will inevitably come, but not for thousands of years. (if we implement ALL of these technologies and many new ones that we havent even thought of yet) but at this rate we might only have 500 years or so, instead of thousands of more years

Answer 5

It takes a lot of oil to produce those things, solar panels and wine turbines are made with oil

Answer 6

Solar - inefficient, expensive, requires huge amounts of space, must remain uncovered (no snow)

Wind - inefficient, requires huge amounts of space, kills birds, noisy

Ethanol - drives up corn/food prices, high pollution

Answer 7

Tidal power has some problems- mostly either directly or indirectly associated with cost. First off, salt water is incredibly corrosive, and the combination of UV and salt water on surface structures is a one-two punch.

    Although tidal power can be extracted in several ways (in theory), the engineering can be daunting. For example, the Passamaquoddy Bay Tidal Power Project, located in Canada, if constructed as planned, would have amplified the tides in Boston, 200+ miles away, by altering the period of the local seiche, or tidal standing wave. This would mean either building extremely extensive flood-control systems along the entirety of Massachusetts Bay (itself unlikely to happen), or changing the scale of the project, which would then not be able to pay for itself.

   That is only one example, and it's a site-specific problem. Other problems include dealing with the environmental impact (again, the Passamaquoddy Bay region is home to endangered marine mammals and over 2 dozen other endangered animal species), the cost of maintenance and infrastructure and support costs.