Green Energy Is Clean Energy?

Everything including nature may have a negative effect, every action should therefore be balanced. Fortunately nature can recover from some disasters. and sometime a mishap may even be good.

I however agree that we must rather not abuse the environment the way we are doing.

I heard a (unconfirmed) story that a guy from Western Australia erected a biiig tent with a funnel / chimney with a turbine in it. The heat of the sun then causes the air to rise and drive the big generator.

Is this really green? or clean?

What will be the effect on the fauna and flora depending on sunlight?

With what other systems can it interfere?

The Australian solar updraft system is being built by a company called EnviroMission Ltd.

It's being built in NSW, Australia. It is clean, sunlight does get through to the ground below the collector, and things do live there. It's been on the Discovery channel, and there's a short "marketing" video animation here:

Enviromission was recently acquired by the U.S. based company SolarMission Technologies Inc. which is developing the technology in the U.S.

It remains to be seen whether the thing is feasible and cost-effective. There was a 50 kW pilot plant in Spain from 1982 to 1989 that ran into some structural stability issues.

I imagine there might be some structural issues too, given that tents are not notoriously strong in high winds.

so we have to find a way to count which is best way to get true clean energy.

organic energy is clean energy completely?

maybe not true.

organic energy is clean energy completely?

maybe not true.

You're right. Certainly, cows are "organic" as can be, but beef production generates more potent green house gases (methane) than driving cars does (CO2). "Organic" pyrithrins have a longer half life than synthetic pyrithroids, and are therefore more dangerous but are allowed to be used on organic fruits and vegetables.

It used to be said that a solar cell uses more energy in its production than you can get out of it in its lifetime. This is no longer true, but the principal remains that one must look beyond the immediate apparent gain to the real life cycle environmental costs.

Perhaps the most egregious example of short-sightedness is the "Hydrogen Economy". Although it is possible to imagine a day when hydrogen would be produced from solar power alone (see caveat above, as well as the caveat above that re the cows that feed the solar cell workers...) we are a long way from that day, and in fact, in the US, our DOE does not predict any really significant change toward renewables in the next 25-30 years. Somewhere else on CR4, I posted about the BMW hydrogen powered car -- you can hardly imagine a less green car.

Some industries are getting better at looking at total life cycle environmental costs of products and processes -- but really, we have a long, long, way to go. There are very large vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Even Toyota, until recently the darling car company of green-thinking people, appears to be selling out, resisting implementation of legislation for modest improvements in fuel efficiency standards. Regarding this, many have said "let the market decide" -- but the "market" is uneducated in energy and environmental issues, and the fleet average has continuously gone down since 1985 here -- the "market" is deciding to go in the wrong direction. Thus the need for laws: people die because of excess fuel consumption, in direct ways (pollution and mining deaths) and less direct ways (wars for control over oil). We need laws to protect us from ourselves.

We need laws to protect us from ourselves.

Hehe..... that really made me laugh because it is so true. There are several posts concerning this "green" topic. It's hard to stay scientifically objective without getting political. I myself can't even buy into the "global warming caused by man" mantra going on now nor could I buy any theory that our best efforts to limit greenhouse gases will make any measurable difference in our lifetime.

I believe it is good common sense and moral sense to try to produce energy as economically feasible as possible WITHOUT polluting the environment with pollutions that "mother nature" won't readily filter out, break down etc.

A lot of "neat" chemicals we've (mankind) developed are really nasty to other living beings which we discover years later.

Many of the "green buildings" being built have such a surcharge on new construction that ROI is painfully lengthened AND their typical complexity requires more (and specialized) maintenance. We have a long way to go as you said.