Recenlty I spoke to a friend studying engineering and he told me that the greatest cause of global warming is the production and consumption of electricity. He told me that if this is the case, then, cooling the Earth would be much more complicated than just switching to alternative energies and reducing CO2.
If anyone has any data and scientific research to back up their answers would be great. But, the important thing is that we really figure out what the problem is, so we can make sure we solve it the right way.
2007-11-15 02:32:16 · 7 answers · asked by alekzmv 2 in Environment ➔ Global Warming
The key to answering this question is to accurately respond to whether the production of electricity actually is a direct cause (not through greenhouse emissions, but directly), and possibly one of the greatest causes of heating the Earth
People who don´t think Global Warming exists, just go answer other questions and remember:
"People who shut their eyes to reality, simply invite their own destruction"
James Baldwin
2007-11-15 03:14:28 · update #1
Yet you still use your computer.
The greatest cause of global warming is the Sun. Man cannot have any impact on the climate.
If burning fossil fuels to generate electricity bothers you, write your congressman and ask for support for nuclear power.
2007-11-15 04:25:03 · answer #1 · answered by Dr Jello 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
It depends on what you're trying to sell. If you're trying to sell electric vehicles, then electricity is the greatest solution to global warming. If you're trying to sell carbon offset certificates, then it doesn't matter which cause is greatest, but it's important to identify it, because it represents your greatest potential customer base.
Addendum: Thanks for the additional details, which help clarify your question. Mankind uses energy to get things done. Some of that energy is consumed in the form of electricity. Taking greenhouse gases emitted by the generation of electricity out of the equation, the only aspects of electricity that bear upon global warming are quantity of energy used and the inefficiencies of using electricity. The inefficiencies of electricity are distributed among generation, transmission (which you have not mentioned), and consumption. However, if a different form of energy were substituted for electricity, it would be almost impossible to achieve the same levels of efficiency. In that sense, electricity, as a form of energy, cannot be the greatest cause of global warming. Obviously, reducing the amount of energy used, whether used in the form of electricity or in another form, would mitigate whatever effects arise from the use of energy, but the quantity of energy used does not implicate a relatively efficient manner of using that quantity of energy as a cause of global warming. So, the answer to your question is "no."
2007-11-15 10:56:51 · answer #2 · answered by Rationality Personified 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
No, electricity is just a transfer mechanism to move kinetic energy from a source to a destination, in other words the ceiling fan turning in your house is being moved by electrons being pushed by magnetic fields generated by turbines in your local power plant. Somewhere around 15-30% of the energy can be lost in the transfer process as heat, but that amount of energy is miniscule compared to what it would take to warm the planet by a noticeable amount. The energy output by all of the automobiles in America is 5 times greater than the energy present in the entire US electrical grid.
2007-11-15 15:55:54 · answer #3 · answered by Tomcat 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I'm an environmental engineer, and I think what your friend is trying to say is that the production of electricity at coal-fired power plants causes a significant amount of the CO2 emitted world-wide. Any combustion process creates CO2, but a coal-fired power plant creates significant amounts of CO2 due to the large amounts processed.
2007-11-18 22:01:53 · answer #4 · answered by kusheng 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
burning fossil fuels is a big one, but not the biggest.
do some research on methane and how much worse that is than C02.
some people say livestock is the major problem, but check out asia with the stagnant water rice fields. how much methane does that produce?
it's not just 1 thing, it's a whole lot and everything needs to be adjusted appropriately.
2007-11-15 10:42:38 · answer #5 · answered by JB 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
DON´T EVEN READ PREVIOUS ANSWERS:
Here is the one single chart you might be looking for: sources of greenhouse gases by gas, by primary energy and final energ.
http://cait.wri.org/figures/World-FlowChart.jpg
NO SPEECH, HARD FACTS.
2007-11-15 12:57:37 · answer #6 · answered by NLBNLB 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
global warming is a scam...lol...think that i'm a nutjob for saying so?...visit this site, and read for yourself, they also provide you with other sites w/ scientists who have done research on this new "scare tactic" http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11548
2007-11-15 11:07:42 · answer #7 · answered by Chelli 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋