Electrical Energy and Choice

Using electrical energy is a lot like driving a car. We seldom think of the risks attached until a problem occurs. We flip a switch and turn on whatever device we need to use, whether that’s an air conditioner, computer, toaster, or a TV and think nothing of it. Like magic, it’s there when we need it. For most of us, electrical power is just a genie in a box that operates unseen.

The rate at which Americans consume electrical power is the world’s highest. According to a 2009 survey conducted by the UN, on a per person basis we use more than twice the rate of people in the European Union, which is in second place. Without finding fault, our lifestyle is energy intensive. So be it. That situation seems unlikely to change anytime soon.

The reality of producing all that power is complex. No source of electrical energy is free from risk or challenges. Let’s review a few of the significant energy issues that most Americans tend to ignore or are indifferent to.

Coal is a good place to start since it accounts for about 50 percent of our electrical energy. In terms of smokestack emissions, coal-fired power plants produce about 25 percent of our nitrogen oxides (nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide), a key ingredient of smog, one-third of the country’s carbon dioxide, 40 percent of the mercury, and two-thirds of our sulfur dioxide, which when combined with atmospheric water vapor produces acid rain. Putting the hazards of carbon dioxide aside, mercury is a well-known carcinogen. It can poison fish in bodies of water hundreds of miles from the coal-burning plant. As a potent neurotoxin, mercury has been demonstrated to cause reduced intelligence in hundreds of thousands of children each year. At the average coal-fired plant, mercury is injected into the atmosphere at rates of approximately 25 pounds per 100 megawatts, making those plants as a group the largest contributor of airborne mercury pollution in the U.S.

Here’s another little-known fact that may surprise readers. In March 2011, the highly respected American Lung Association (ALA) released a report (Toxic Air: The Case For Cleaning Up Coal-Fired Power Plants) that stated: “Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.” The ALA report singled out coal-fired power plants as producing more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other source of industrial pollution.

When compared to coal-fired power plants, natural gas-fired plants, which produce slightly less than 25 percent of the U.S. power supply, emit substantially fewer pollutants: about half as much carbon dioxide, and several hundred times less sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulates. Although those fewer emissions may seem to be positive factors, the fine particulates that gas-fired plants emit have significant adverse human health effects because they by-pass our bodies' natural respiratory filters and can penetrate deep into the lungs. A number of scientific studies have found no safe exposure to those particulates.

Nuclear plants produce materials that generate radiation and may come into contact with people through small releases during routine plant operation, accidental releases during operation that range from small to catastrophic, accidents in transporting radioactive materials, and escape of radioactive wastes from confinement. The principal risks associated with nuclear power arise from health effects of radiation since subatomic particles are able to penetrate deep inside the human body where they can damage biological cells and cause cancer. If radiation affects fetal development, genetic diseases may result. It should be noted that recent technical improvements in nuclear power generation have greatly decreased many of the above risks though no new plants using those advances have been built in the U.S., largely because of the onerous regulatory process and environmental activism.

Solar power is one of the two current darlings of environmentalists but owns its share of risk. Although solar cells generate no pollution during operation the area required for a large-scale solar power generating station is considerable, as is evidenced by the 21 million acres of arid and semi-arid public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah the federal government designated for the solar power industry to engage in industrial-scale solar development. That public acreage is more than the federal government has opened for oil and gas exploration over the last ten plus years and will be severely damaged as natural habitat for the foreseeable future if developed as intended.

Wind power is not free from risk or environmental hazards. Witness the hundreds of birds, including dozens of eagles in California alone that have died recently as a result of fatal collisions with rotating turbine blades. Other negative effects include potentially irreversible destruction of thousands of square miles of natural habitat, and visual and noise pollution. It should be noted that health risks to humans from both solar and wind power are negligible.

Our choices in power generation should be clear but aren’t. Witness the shameless propensity of supporters of one technology or another to flat out lie in national advertising campaigns about the benefits of that technology. Nor do Americans seem the least bit interested in reducing our enormous per capita energy consumption. Heaven forbid.

My guess is we’ll stumble along with our present system well into the foreseeable future with lobbyists from non-renewable energy industries wining and dining members of Congress and funneling megabucks into their re-election campaigns while expecting and receiving favorable treatment. It’ll be business as usual while each year many thousands of Americans suffer avoidable health problems and deaths from hazardous by-products of electrical power generation.

Oh, well. It’s a system we have freely chosen.