thought i'd pass this on... I haven't read it yet other than the abstract
but it looks interesting...
The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce
the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and
rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear
power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Stanford.
...
Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the
proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their
potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their
impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply,
space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and
sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting the
most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best
available options. The paper with his findings will be published in the next
issue of Energy and Environmental Science and
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c
...
The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in
order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid),
geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and
hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and
sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie
grass.
Heather Saffert, Ph.D.
Staff Scientist
Clean Ocean Action
phone (732) 872-0111
fax (732) 872-8041
[email protected]
