Renewable energy word search 4 letters5/16/2023 ![]() ![]() Ĭompared with fossil fuel technologies, which are typically mechanized and capital intensive, the renewable energy industry is more labor intensive. However, NREL's 80-percent-by-2050 renewable energy study, which included biomass and geothermal, found that total water consumption and withdrawal would decrease significantly in a future with high renewables. Hydroelectric power plants can disrupt river ecosystems both upstream and downstream from the dam. In contrast, fossil fuels can have a significant impact on water resources: both coal mining and natural gas drilling can pollute sources of drinking water, and all thermal power plants, including those powered by coal, gas, and oil, withdraw and consume water for cooling.īiomass and geothermal power plants, like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, may require water for cooling. In addition, wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate and thus do not pollute water resources or strain supplies by competing with agriculture, drinking water, or other important water needs. Geothermal and biomass systems emit some air pollutants, though total air emissions are generally much lower than those of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Wind, solar, and hydroelectric systems generate electricity with no associated air pollution emissions. Most of these negative health impacts come from air and water pollution that clean energy technologies simply don’t produce. That’s equivalent to 4.36 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced-about one-third of the average electricity rate for a typical US home. The pollution affects everyone: one Harvard University study estimated the life cycle costs and public health effects of coal to be an estimated $74.6 billion every year. The air and water pollution emitted by coal and natural gas plants is linked with breathing problems, neurological damage, heart attacks, cancer, premature death, and a host of other serious problems.
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