With the population of the Earth quickly approaching 7 Billion its
hard not to see a train wreck coming. Each one of those 7 billion use
up food, water, energy, trees, pollute, etc. Alternative energy
sources are needed but they are not the silver bullets either.
For instance:
Biofuels, biomass - Use up agricultural space, water, food sources.
Corn is used heavily in feeding cows and chickens.
Geothermal - Needs water. Did you know the process can cause
earthquakes in other locations? Geothermal activity is what creates
our islands, land masses/continents, if we take the heat energy away
from a lot of Earth's hot spots how will it effect the Earths's
ability to evolve?
Solar - If we put huge solar arrays all over the place, put solar
panels in our concrete roadways and parking lots, how will we effect
our environment. Take California's Mojave desert for example, with all
the Solar arrays that are proposed to be built around there. The Sun's
energy that used to get absorbed into the ground where those solar
arrays were will now be processed by the solar cells. So what happens
to the desert climate? How will that effect winds, cause we all know
winds are caused by the differences in pressure gradients?
Wind - Takes up land and or sea space, probably effects bird migratory
paths. Probably not too much of a problem but when you absorb the
energy from the wind you've taken away from the winds energy so can
that effect wind patterns?
Tidal - Probably not a problem cause that energy comes from the moons
gravity.
Well anyway if you get my drift, I'm really wondering how the Law of
Conservation of Energy applies here? I know Earth is not a completely
closed system but, if we were to implement these and all the others on
a grand scale how would it effect Earth's climate? If you take it away
from Earth's natural resources, whether they be renewable or not,
thats a bit of energy that the Earth lost and was used for human
consumption.
Raj
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