Fossil fuels or nuclear energy: Which is more eco-friendly?

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

8 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

07/03/2009

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Ecology & environment

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Summary :

Introduction: The issue
Working of fossil fuels
Downsides to fossil fuels
1. Products of combustion
2. Acid mine drainage
Improving fossil fuels
Working of nuclear power
Downsides to nuclear power and ways to remedy them
Comparing nuclear and fossil
1. Mining
2. The carbon issue
Conclusion
Works cited

Abstract

Human populations are growing at the fastest rates ever, and with this boom in population and standards of living, electricity consumption is growing. In 2007, there were 3891.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity used, which is a 1000 billion kilowatt-hours or a 37.17% increase in use compared to that used in 1990 (U.S. energy Information Administration, 2008). In addition to this fact, there is a projected increase of an additional 40% by the year 2030 (Burt and Mullins, 2008). According to the energy Information Association, the two largest sources of electricity currently in use are fossil fuels, which make up 72%, and nuclear energy, which makes up 19.4% of the current United States production (Schnapp, 2009). fossil fuels can be broken down into two main types with several smaller groups. The main fossil fuels are natural gas and coal, which make up 21.6% and 48.5% respectively for the year 2007 (Schnapp, 2009).