Beyond hydro power

The alternatives to hydro power have been growing steadily over the years. We look at some of the other options for electricity generation.

Solar

Outfitting a typical three-bedroom house with solar panels was ten times more expensive ten years ago than it is today. Forecasters expect it will be two to three decades before solar energy costs less than burning coal or oil, but in regions with long, sunny days, such power is considered a viable supplement to the main energy supply.

Large-capacity plants would bring down the cost of such power, but until that happens, there isn’t enough demand for the plants.

Wind

Thanks to advances in turbine technology, wind power is much more price competitive than fuel cells. The fastest-growing energy source in the world, wind power costs the same as natural gas, coal or oil.

In the past two years, worldwide wind-power capacity grew by one-third.

Unlike nuclear power plants, wind farms are widely accepted in their communities and are an economic boon because farmers are paid for allowing the turbines on their land.

Fuel cells

Advances in fuel cells for cars are driving the technology for stationary fuel cells, used on a small scale to run operations from traffic lights to power plants.

In a fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water and the energy released in that reaction produces an electric current. The hydrogen can be used directly or extracted from natural gas, ethanol, or even gasoline.

Because the fuel isn’t burned and doesn’t leave pollutants and the cell’s energy can be stored long-term, fuel cells have an advantage over wind and sunshine.

However, fuel cells still are not cost-efficient.

Fuel cells are key in the trend toward “distributed power”, which means producing electricity at or near the point it is consumed. With distributed power, the grid becomes more of a network, thereby making better use of the grid by spreading the power sources around and putting some of them closer to the end user.

Garbage

Bioenergy is the combustion of plant matter to produce power, including the burning of wood, ethanol and methane gas, a naturally occurring byproduct of landfills and sewage-treatment plants.

Geothermal

The heat and steam in underground geological formations can be harnessed to produce electricity.

Nuclear

Disasters at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 and the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 have been well-publicised.

Because such plants don’t generate greenhouse gases, such plants probably won’t become an issue unless somebody proposes building another one.

Power to the People Supplement