Energy Resource
Advantages and Disadvantages
Biofuel (Renewable)
Advantages:
- Less expensive than fossil fuels
- Range of resources
- Increases jobs in the community
- Produce emissions when burned
- Require large amounts of land to grow
- Land used may push out food crops
Geothermal (Renewable)
Advantages:
- 3 to 5 time more effective than electrical heating
- Very reliable due to few moving parts
- Flexibility in installation
- Installation is expensive
- causes disturbance to local area
- Requires electricity from fossil fuels
Fossil Fuel
Coal (Non-renewable)
Advantages:
- No energy source is close to replacing amounts of energy generated
- Technology to control pollution released
- Cheap and plentiful
- Not easily transportable
- Most important contributor to global warming
- Implies liquidation of a limited stock of a resource
Natural Gas (Non-Renewable)
Advantages:
- Technology to control pollution released
- Cheap and plentiful
- No other energy source comes close to replacing amounts of energy generated
- Most important contributor to global warming
- Increasingly dangerous to extract
Oil (Non- Renewable)
Advantages:
- Can travel via pipeline
- Technology to control pollution released
- Cheap and plentiful
- Oil spills
- Open-cast mining clears habitat
- Most important contributor to global warming
Hydroelectric (renewable)
Advantages:
- Reliable form of energy generated
- Dam create large artificial lakes
- Relatively cheap to run
- Vast area may be flooded
- Dams restrict flow of sediments
- May lead to increased erosion rates
Nuclear Power (Non-renewable)
Advantages:
- Does not emit CO2
- Technology is readily available
- Large amount of energy generated
- Produces radioactive waste
- Never completely reliable
- Uranium is scarce
Solar (Renewable)
Advantages:
- Low maintenance cost
- Solar cells can last a lifetime
- Creates no pollution
- Very expensive for generating electricity
- Limited in northern countries
- Photovoltaic cells take up space to meet energy needs
Tidal Power (renewable)
Advantages:
- More predictable than solar or wind
- Low maintenance cost
- Up to 80% at tide to electric power
- Expensive to set up
- Can impact wildlife
- Can interfere with navigation
Wind (renewable)
Advantages:
- Take small plot of land
- Does not produce pollutants
- Useful for getting electricity in remote areas
- Very noisy
- Creates pollution
- Not reliable due to unreliable wind