There are many solutions to climate change. One of them is to simply reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. This can also be done through a number of ways but some of the more well-known options is to use renewable energy sources to provide electricity.
On the face of it, using renewable energy sounds like a great idea. The energy sector accounts for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and lowering those emissions would be a good way to limit the impacts of climate change and prevent excessive deaths from pollution[1].
However, it is not that simple. Renewable energy has its own impacts on the environment. Dams clog up rivers and destroy habitats.
Solar panels and wind turbines both use up rare metals that need to be extracted from the ground which produces pollution. So, the question is are renewable energy sources worth it? Are they really the solution the world needs?
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Image Credit: Andreas Gucklhorn from Unsplash
One of the more widespread renewable energy sources is solar power. Instead of using the power of the wind, moving water, or the static electricity of rain drops, solar power uses energy coming directly from the sun. However, to effectively absorb that energy and turn it into electricity, solar panels do need various components some of which are hazardous.
Some of these materials include hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, hydrogen fluoride, and heavy metals[2]. These substances can become a problem when the solar panel needs to be replaced. Usually, they are just thrown into a landfill even though they can technically be recycled[3].
Does this mean that solar panels should not be used? The answer is no. The hazardous materials in solar panels only make up a small portion of the panel itself and they are well contained so they rarely have an impact on the surrounding environment[4].
However, the heavy metals also found in many solar panels can have a significant impact on the environment during the mining process. Mining usually destroys the local habitat and ecosystem and also produces large amounts of pollution.
For example, zinc, which can be found in solar panels, produces around 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide for each tonne extracted not including other pollutants[5]. Another material found in solar panels is silicon. However, even though silicon is the second most common element on the earth’s crust, it is rarely in a pure form and therefore has to be separated from its usual quartz form.
This makes the process of refining silicon an emissions heavy process[6]. For each solar panel, the 660 grams of silicon in it on average emitted around 6 kilograms of carbon dioxide during the purifying process[7].
All in all, the production of solar panels emits around 53 tonnes of carbon dioxide for each gigawatt-hour of electricity generation[8]. However, over their lifetime solar panels easily make up for the emissions produced as a result of their construction by preventing the emissions that would otherwise be emitted by burning fossil fuels.
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Hydroelectric Dams
Image Credit: Shelby Bauman from Unsplash
Another renewable energy source is the hydroelectric dam. The most well-known type of dam is known as storage hydropower where a dam holds back a large quantity of water to create energy as it flows through a turbine in the dam. The problem with this type is that it completely ruins the river ecosystem the dam is on.
When a dam is built blocking a river it threatens the native aquatic fauna, especially the migratory species. It also changes the flow of the river along with the water temperature, the water chemistry, and the nutrient levels in front of the dam and further downstream[9].
All these changes seriously disrupt the river and too many dams on one river can help cause the extinction of many native species and the collapse of the entire river ecosystem. This has happened before. Dams on rivers also decimate local migratory fish populations.
More than 58,000 dams have been built in most of the world’s rivers and since 1970 there has been a 76% decline in migratory fish stocks. While those fish have been affected by other factors such as overfishing and pollution, dams have certainly played a part[10].
Dams also block nutrients coming from upriver to places downriver. That means animals and plants further downriver do not get enough nutrients and the biodiversity of a river ecosystem is decreased. However, as the nutrients build up in the reservoir behind the dam, bacteria start eating the sediment buildup and they emit greenhouse gases as a byproduct of this process. In fact, the bacteria living in the reservoirs of dams are actually responsible 1.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions[11].
However, not all dams are built to produce energy. For example, in the US most dams were built for other purposes such as flood control, water supply, and irrigation water. Many of those dams do have hydroelectric generators to produce energy from the water they let through but only a small number were built specifically for that purpose[12]. Maybe dams are not the most environmentally friendly renewable energy source but the question of whether dams should be built so that people can access the water is a whole other problem.
Wind Turbines
Image Credit: Gonz DDL from Unsplash
Another well-known renewable energy source is the wind and wind turbines are built worldwide to harness that power, on land and at sea. Overall, wind turbines do have a lower impact on the environment when compared to other energy sources. They do not take up as much land as solar farms do and they do not harm as much wildlife as dams do.
Wind turbines do contain rare earth metals such as neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, and quite a lot of them in fact. A 2-megawatt wind turbine can have up to 800 pounds of neodymium in it and 130 pounds of dysprosium. All three of those elements do have to be extracted from the ground which does cause damage to the environment, especially terbium and neodymium[13]. Luckily, those elements can be recycled and reused in another turbine but just like the materials in solar panels they are not recycled very often[14].
However, there is another problem with wind turbines. They actually have a direct warming effect on the atmosphere. This is because they take energy from the wind slowing it down while also mixing air from near the surface to higher up.
If just a few wind turbines are around the effect of this warming is negligible. If there are enough wind turbines, though, the effect of their warming actually gets higher than the warming otherwise caused by burning fossil fuels. Luckily this offset is only true for a decade or so. When looking at longer timescales, wind turbines are absolutely worth it to have as a solution against climate change[15].
Image Credit: Nicholas Doherty from Unsplash
Another issue with wind turbines that critics bring up is their interactions with local wildlife. Wind turbines do kill birds and bats if they fly into the turbine while it is spinning[16]. However, the number of deaths caused by other threats to these animals far outweighs that of the turbines themselves. Cats kill over 2 billion birds in the US each year alone[17].
Are They Worth It?
After reading all this you may be wondering if these renewable energy sources are really worth it. Hydroelectric dams cause great damage to the environment by blocking up rivers. Solar panels take up land and resources, some of which are extracted from the ground creating large amounts of emissions. Wind turbines require large amounts of rare earth metals that when extracted cause large amounts of pollution and radioactive waste.
The fact is, there is no energy solution that has no negative impact on the environment. When compared to fossil fuels, though, the impacts that renewable energy sources have pales in utter comparison to the absolute destruction that fossil fuels wreck upon the world. It is estimated that more than 8 million people die from the pollution created by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide[18].
This does not even include the damage climate change causes to the planet which will last thousands of years into the future. In other words, renewable energy sources are absolutely by far the best option for energy production and fossil fuels should be phased out as soon as possible for the damage they cause.
If you are still concerned about the environmental impact of renewable energy sources, especially hydroelectric dams, there are many solutions to each of the problems these sources cause. For hydroelectric dams, there is another option for creating energy called run-of-river hydropower where it only uses a small portion of the river and lets the rest of it flow by.
For solar panels, there have been huge technological advancement such as the creation of solar paint and solar-powered clothing including see-through solar panels which can be used as windows[19]. There has also been advancements in wind turbine technology making them more efficient and less costly[20].
