Page - 31 - in Water, Energy, and Environment - A Primer

will decline and, in some cases, they may become extinct. One example of such habitat destruction is the cutting down of forests in the Amazon to create new agricultural land for growing crops that can be converted into liquid fuels (e.g., alcohols). Water requirements: thermal power plants – fossil fuel, nuclear, geothermal, concentrating solar – require large amounts of water for cooling turbine generator exhausts; fracking requires large amounts of water per well to release trapped oil and natural gas; hydropower generators require high water flow rates. These requirements often conflict with other demands for community and agricultural water, creating potential shortages and tensions. Issues associated with nuclear fission power: while nuclear power offers a large, CO2-free thermal energy source, its use presents five serious areas of concern: (a) safety:nuclear fissioncreates largeamountsofshort-and long-lived radioactive waste products that, if released accidentally, can cause serious health effects and long-term abandonment of public areas. The meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986 has put a large area around the plant off limits for human occupation for about a century. A similar situation exists around the site of the FukushimaDaichi reactormeltdowns in Japan in2011. (b) the capital requirements and running costs of nuclear- generated electricity; (c) the safety of transport of radioactive wastes through communities on the way to temporary or permanent storage; (d) theability tostoresafely, for longperiodsof time,highly radioactivewasteswith longhalf-lives; and (e) protecting nuclear materials from diversion to use as weapons. Energyproductionand its consequences 31