Conventional Energy with Benefits & Drawback

The conventional sources of energy are generally non-renewable sources of energy, which are being used since a long time. These sources of energy are being used extensively in such a way that their known reserves have been depleted to a great extent.
Benefits of Conventional Energy:

Right now, conventional sources of energy (Oil, Coal, Gas) are the cheapest ones.

If solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy etc would have been cheaper – than you, me and everyone else would start using them immediately. Not to mention the power companies that want to earn the most… 

Another advantage of conventional energy is that we have large amounts of it (still) and that it is available all day long – you can burn oil day and night, sun & rain, summer & winter. 

Solar energy, for example needs to be stored during the day so that you can use it at night. Wind energy may not be available for days. So does tidal energy. 

Of course, I don’t imply that conventional energy has only advantages. It is very bad on the environment. However, for now it is the most convenient and cheapest source of energy, and this is why we use so much of it.

Drawbacks of Conventional Energy

At the same time it is becoming increasingly difficult to discover and exploit their new deposits. It is envisaged at known deposits of petroleum in our country will get exhausted by the few decades and coal reserves are expected to last for another hundred years. The coal, petroleum, nuclear & natural gas are conventional sources of energy.

For decades, the conventional way to deliver energy from the point of production to consumers was via centralized power plants. These plants emit immense amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, including particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Current estimates for 2008 energy related CO2 emissions are 5,735 MMT, or 81 percent of the total emissions, are related to energy production. Greenhouse gas emissions were estimated at 7,052 MMT for all gases in 2008 (EIA 2008). These include energy related CO2, and other high global warming potential (GWP) gases including nitrous oxide (NOx), and methane (CH4) and CFCs. Energy related CO2 has been emitted more than any other gas, and accounted for 81 percent of all emissions in 2008 (EIA 2008). Based on three major fuels, petroleum, coal, and natural gas, petroleum is shown to have the greatest emissions, followed by coal, and natural gas. When emissions were broken down by sector,  electric power shows the greatest impact. Residential, commercial and industrial has the smallest impact, but it can be argued that this sector should be included in the electric power sector since buildings are consumers of electricity as well. In addition to greenhouse gases, there is also waste heat, contaminated water, and solid materials such as ash, scrubber residue, and particulate matter polluting the land and waterways.

The conventional energy system creates many other problems, such as groundwater and soil pollution from the chemicals involved in cleaning and cooling parts. To produce electricity, fossil fuel power plants must withdraw water from sources such as rivers and lakes in order to create steam to run turbines that create electricity. The boilers and other parts must also be periodically cleaned. During these processes, used water is discharged and is contaminated with many toxic chemicals and heavy metals (Baum, Chaisson, Miller, et al. 2003). Each year, coal fired power plants produce over 130 million tons of CCW which consists of waste from processes such as scrubber cleaning and other processes necessary to keep the plants operating properly. Like purged water, CCW released into the environment is filled with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, and often a singe power plant requires several acres to dispose of the waste (NRDC 2007). The conventional energy system also costs Americans billions of dollars annually in health costs. A 2009 study by the National Academy of Sciences revealed that each year fossil fuels cost Americans $120 billion in human health damage. $62 million of this is caused solely by coal power plants (AWEA 2010).

Nuclear power is extremely expensive to produce, requires great attention to safety because of the risks from radioactivity, has the potential for catastrophic accidents (such as the one at Chernobyl in 1986), and produces waste products which require looking after for thousands of years. While it has the potential to generate a lot of electricity the risks are high and the same investment in insulation, energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy would produce great benefits and fewer risks.