Friday, September 4, 2015

Would a increase of solar panels, hydroelectric power, and wind power be effective national strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and...

The things that you mention would not be an "effective"
national strategy for reducing emissions and preventing global warming.  This is because
they would be both too expensive to be affordable and insufficiently effective in
preventing global warming.


As you can see in the
Scientific American link, the level of cuts in emissions that would
be needed to prevent serious global warming would be tremendous.  The article estimates
that emissions would need to be reduced by 70%.  Even if this is seriously overstated,
it would be exceedingly difficult to reduce emisssions by anywhere near to this amount
through solar, wind, and hydro power.


In addition, these
types of power have serious issues.  Solar power is, at this point, not economically
competitive with fossil fuel power.  America's potential for hydro power has been pretty
well reached as there are dams on most rivers that would provide relevant amounts of
power.  Wind, too, is relatively expensive and is not feasible in most parts of the
country.


Overall, then, the things you mention would not be
effective as a national strategy for preventing warming.  However, they might be
effective (particularly wind and maybe solar someday) as a
part of a strategy that also puts a strong emphasis on
conservation and reducing demand for electricity and oil.

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