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name one disadvantage of using coaland natural gas to generate electricity.

and how would using windmills to generate electricity address the disadvantage what you mentioned?

2007-03-11 14:58:47 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Other - Science

4 answers

Coal and natural gas release carbon dioxide into the air when burned, along with methane if they are incompletely burned. Carbon dioxide and methane are both "greenhouse gases". Theoretically windmills would eliminate the release of these gases, by eliminateing the need to burn coal or gas in the first place.
But there's a huge hole in this theory. What are you gonna make the windmills out of? The only material suitable for the non-electrical parts of the wind turbine is a plastic composite, either carbon-fiber or some other reinforced plastic. But the refining of oil to get the polymers out of which the plastics are made also involves the release of carbon dioxide and methane.
Any electrical generator has to have copper windings in the field and on the stator, to create the electrical current that will become the generated electricity. It takes machinery using either electricity or fossil fuels to mine the copper ore and convert it into usable copper wire for the windings. This machinery, too, will facilitate the need for the release of carbon dioxide or methane to power them for the production of the wire.
Kind of a Catch-22.

2007-03-13 15:05:40 · answer #1 · answered by jogimo2 3 · 0 0

One disadvantage is the pollution that comes from the output from producing the electricity. Also the amounts of radioactive material dispersed from coal generators. There's also the problem with great big holes in the ground and the drilling for natural gas and the pipelines for moving the gas. both use lots of land for their transportation, either pipelines, conveyor belts, train lines and/or trucks. the mount of fuel used in the exploration and mining of these products is pretty heavy too. Wind mills are renewable energy, produce less ongoing pollution and look pretty on the landscape. They take up less overall space and exploring sites is simpler, no drilling, mining or massive digging.

2007-03-11 15:26:17 · answer #2 · answered by dorpkick01 2 · 1 0

Coal and natural gases can pollute the environment when used improperly, leading to world problems such as global warming and the ozone hole. Also, coal and gases are limited supplies of power, once we use them up we will be unable to get more. Using windmills to generate electicity is using a clean, non-expendable source for power.

2007-03-13 12:25:19 · answer #3 · answered by andrea_bocelli_fan1 3 · 0 0

The problems are:
1. Pollution
2. Global Warming.
3. Spread of radioactive material.

Windmills run on the natural energy. no pollution of any kind. No by-products of any kind and hence no global warming.

2007-03-11 19:03:00 · answer #4 · answered by Neeraj 1 · 0 0

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