Energy and Environment

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter explores the environmental impact of energy. Man demands from the earth's system more and more energy from various sources: sun, fossil fuels and minerals, wood and hydro. It is interesting to note how the actual and projected mean power primary demand by mankind compares with the one relative to a natural phenomenon like global geothermal heat flux estimated at 32 TW, and how it is far superior to the one dissipated globally in tidal phenomena estimated at 3 TW. Only solar energy in its direct and indirect forms, as renewable source, and fossil chemical and nuclear fuels can be therefore the long-range answer to the request of energy by man. There has been no real energy policy in the development of modern societies for the choice of the type of source to be exploited with a conscious look at the future, except for the new form discovered some 40 years ago of producing heat through nuclear fission. The recent energy crisis has shown the necessity of an energy policy, hopefully on a worldwide basis, or at least inside large geopolitical ensembles in the world, characterized by serious studies and rational decisions, putting into the picture also the problem of the sources to be exploited, but also the problem of a better utilization of energy by final users, the problem of conservation of energy and the problem of environmental impact of energy production.