What are the disadvantages of using coal and solar generated electrcity?

Question

What are the disadvantages of using coal and solar generated electrcity?

Answer 1

Coal is what runs our power plants and it's very high in polution!!  That's what's wrong with the ozone!!!  Solar is a good idea depending on where you live!

Answer 2

Well, the advantages of solar power are well documented. For example see:

Answer 3

Coal is cheap but more hazardous and damaging to the environment.

Solar-Power is expensive but has no reprecussions to the earth.

Answer 4

Coal is subsidized already.  Coal is the dirtiest fuel we have.  It must be mined, transported, burned and sometimes modified before use.

Strip mining, in particular,  is very disruptive of the environment.

Solar photovoltaics are improving rapidly in cost and efficiency.  We are maybe 5 years or less from reaching grid parity with existing fossil fuel power.  Concentrating PV solar in very sunny climates is much more efficient and is applicable for power plants.  Solar thermal power plants can already produce competitively priced power.

Solar uses no fuel ever.  No pollution, no fuel discovery costs, no fuel transport, no fuel storage, no dependence on foreign oil or uranium.   No hidden costs.  Total hidden costs of oil and gas are estimated as high as $800 billion annually in the U.S.   European countries also have high hidden costs for oil.

Scientific America Solar Grand Plan

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

Click to see how we can convert the U.S. electric grid to solar, 65% by 2050 and near 100% by 2100.  Plan calls for spending about $13 billion a year for 30 years, in public money.  We now give oil companies about $80 billion per year in subsidies.

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

Green  Wombat has several articles about solar thermal power plants being built in California and Arizona.  Just scroll down.

  One company, Ausra, says:

"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."

"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."

Even the impact on the desert is slight.

Answer 5

Coal: Extracting it is hazardous to health, and burning it pollutes the air.

Solar: Current solar energy conversion technology is quite inefficient when compared to other methods, a problem that gets worse on cloudy/overcast days.

Answer 6

Coal:

Global warming; environmental spoliation by open-cast mining; land subsidence due to deep mining; spoil heaps; groundwater pollution; acid rain

Solar:

Sequestration of large land areas; use of toxic materials in manufacture of PV cells; visual intrusion in both rural and urban environments; Mostly useful for heating water only; not useful when no sunlight is available

Answer 7

Coal is bad for the environment because it messes up our atmosphere . Solar is good for our environment because some how it helps with the sun i guess. I don't know exactly.

Answer 8

Coal: We are the Saudi Arabia of Coal. Although much of it it low grade and only suitable for large scale burning in power plants, etc., where stack scrubbers and other methods (very expensive) are used to clean the emissions. Anthricite, (hard coal) is only found in the NE to my knowwledge. It is the low sulphur type. Extraction and Emissions would be the 2 disadvantages.

Solar: It is expensive per KW about $7-9, vs. about 3-6 cents for coal produced electricity, less for hydro, more for oil. That is  HUGE  cost differential. (currently)

It only works in daylight hours. Storage is a question for off production time.

Both have their place. Both have their issues.