Pros and cons of fossil fuel energy
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PROS
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CONS
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|---|---|
| Fossil fuel power plants can generate energy when needed, no matter the weather conditions; | Fossil fuel power plants release in the air 24 bil tons of CO2; |
| Compared to renewable energy they almost ever have a higher capacity factor; | All fossil fuel power lants rely on exhaustible sources; |
| Until now we have developed better fossil fuel power plants than renewable power plants, because we use them since the late 19th century. | Incidents linked to exhaustible sources caused and will cause a lot of damage to our environment. |
Pros and cons of renewable energy
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PROS
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CONS
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|---|---|
| They never produce greenhouse gasses; | Solar and eolic power plants have the lowest capacity factor among renewable power plants (both 20% to 30%); |
| They're easy to set up (especially solar panels and wind turbines); | For hydroelectric power plants is needed the right spot; |
| Hydroelectric and geothermal sources produce a lot of energy and they both have a high capacity factor (45% and 69%); | Renewable energy sources alone don’t produce enough energy because some of them don’t work all the time; |
| Renewable energies don’t rely on exhaustible sources (like gas, petrol or carbon); | Sometimes renewable energy power plants produce so much energy which can’t be stocked in batteries, that CEOs/states have to pay people to use it. (Californian solar energy excess in 2017); |
| Renewable energy power plants cost less than fossil fuel power plants. | In order to build solar panels and wind turbines we need to use rare-earth elements, like lithium and neodymium. |
Pros and cons of nuclear energy (nuclear fission)
In the European taxonomy, which is a classification system that establishes a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities, nuclear fission is considered a green investment but despite this in Italy it's labeled a dangerous energy source.
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PROS
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CONS
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|---|---|
| Nuclear power plants don’t release polluting gasses, in fact the only released gas is water vapor; | Nuclear power plants have high building prices and take several years to be done; |
| Nuclear power plants have the highest capacity factor (above 90%) among all the existing energy sources; | In case of a reactor meltdown the nearby area becomes uninhabitable; |
| Nuclear fuel rods can be stocked inside special casks which screen radioactivity and are extremely safe; | Nuclear waste warehouses, in order to be build, need a secure place and could affect the habitability of the area (Italian nuclear waste warehouses map); |
| The price of nuclear energy remains constant during time. | Especially in Italy there is a low consent among the population for nuclear energy. |
Death rates from energy production per TWh
This data comes from two different sources: Markandya & Wilkinson and Sovacool, the first one about fossil fuels, nuclear and biomass and the second one about nuclear and renewables. The studies look at death rates since 1990 until 2013, the Chernobyl disaster was included by Our World in Data and is based on the W.H.O. report of 2006. The chart shows the number of deaths, caused by incidents or pollution, per terawatt-hour of energy production.
Greenhouse gas emissions
This chart is based on two sources: IPCC AR5 (2014) and Pehl (2017) and shows the number of CO2 tonnes produced for every gigawatt-hour and for the construction and the eventual decommissioning of the power plant of different types of energy sources.
