P1 - Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Bio-fuels and Non - renewables

wind power
1. involves putting lots of wind turbines up in exposed places likes on moors or round coasts.
2. each turbine has a generator inside it - the rotating blades turn the generator and produce electricity
3. there's no pollution (except for a little when they're manufactured)
4. they do spoil the view - you need about 1500 wind turbines to replace one coal-fired power station and 1500 of them to cover a lot of ground- can have a big affect on the scenery
5. they can be very noisy, which can be annoying for people living nearby
6. there's also the problem of the turbines stopping when the wind stops or if the wind is too strong, and it's impossible to increase supply when there's extra demand - on average, wind turbines produce electricity 70-80% of the time
7. the initial costs are quite high, but there are no fuel costs and minimal running costs
8. there's no permanent damage to the landscape - if you remove the turbines, you remove the noise and the view returns to normal
solar cells
1. generate electric currents directly from sunlight. Solar cells are often the best source of energy to change batteries in calculators and watches which don't use much electricity
2. solar power is often used in remote places where there's not much choice to power electric road signs and satellites
3. there's no pollution (although they do use quite a lot of energy to manufacture
4. in sunny countries solar power is a very reliable source of energy - but only in the daytime. Solar power can still be cost - effective even in cloudy countries like Britain though
5. you can't increase the power output when there's extra demand
6. initial costs are high but after that the energy is free and running costs is almost nil
7. solar cells are usually used to generate electricity on a relatively small scale
Geothermal power
1. this is possible in volcanic areas or where hot rock lie quite near to the surface. The source of much of the energy is the slow decay of various radioactive elements, including uranium, deep inside the earth
2. this is brilliant free energy that's reliable and does very little damage to the environment
3. geothermal power can be used to generate electricity, or to heat buildings directly
4. the main drawbacks are that there aren't very many suitable locations for power plants, and the cost of building a power plant us often high compared to the amount of energy it produces
bio - fuels
1. bio-fuels are renewable energy resources created from either plant products or animal dung. They can be solid, liquid or gas and can be burnt to produce electricity or run cars in the same way as fossil fuels
2. they are supposedly carbon neutral, although there's some debate about this as it's only really true if you keep growing plants at the rate that you're burning things
3. bio-fuels are fairly reliable, as crops take a relatively short time to grow and different crops can be grown all year round. However, they cannot respond to immediate energy demands
  1. to combat this, bio-fuels are continuously produced and stored for when they're needed
4. the cost to refine bio-fuels is very high and some worry that growing crops specifically for bio-fuels will mean there isn't enough space or water to meet the demands for crops that are grown for food
5. in some regions, large areas od forest have been cleared to make room to grow bio-fuels, resulting in lots of species losing their natural habitats
  1. the decay and burning of this vegetation also increases carbon dioxide and methane emissions
non - renewable
1. fossil fuels and nuclear energy are reliable. There's enough fossil and nuclear fuels to meet current demand, and they're extracted from the earth at a fast enough rate that power plants always have fuel in stock
  1. this means that the power plants can respond quickly to changes in demand
2. these fossil fuels are slowly running out - if no new resources are found some fossil fuels stocks may run out within a hundred years
3. while the set-up costs of power plants can be quite high compared to some other energy resources, the running costs aren't that expensive
  1. combined with fairly low fuel extraction costs, using fossil fuels is a cost effective way to produce energy
non-renewable create environmental problems
1. coal, oil and gas release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they're burned - all this carbon dioxide adds to the greenhouse effect, and contributes to global warming
2. burning coal and oil also release sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain - which can be harmful to trees and soils and can have far-reaching effects in ecosystems
  1. acid rain can be reduced by taking the sulfur out before the fuel is burned, or cleaning up the emissions
3. coal mining makes a mess of the landscape, especially 'open-cast mining' - as many energy resources, the view can be spoilt by fossil fuel power plants
4. oil spillages cause serious environmental problems, affecting mammals and birds that live in and around the sea
5. nuclear power is clean but the nuclear waste is very dangerous and difficult to dispose of
  1. nuclear fuel is relatively cheap but the overall cost of nuclear power is high due to the cost of the power plant and final decommissioning
6. nuclear power always carries the risk of a major catastrophe like the Fukushima disaster in Japan

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P1 - Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Bio-fuels and Non - renewables

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