A Comparative Study of Environmental Impacts between Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy Sources: An Overview

الملخص

Most energy reports compare different types of energies by the amount of primary energy needed to produce them regardless of the other aspects of generation. This study presents a review for the different sources of energy extraction such as renewables (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, …etc.) and non-renewable sources fossil fuel (oil, natural gas and coal). The main objective of this review is highlighting how far this source impacts on the environment and ecological system that including the land footprint (land used), carbon footprint (gases emissions, GHG) and water consumption.  Electricity generation is energy intensive, and each source leaves its own environmental and ecological footprint. Although many studies have considered how electricity generation impacts other aspects of the environment, few have looked specifically at how much land different energy sources require. According to the data from World Energy Assessment (WEA) report, geothermal energy has the largest resources and the lower environmental impacts among the other types of renewable energies. On the other hand, the energy extracted from coal source is the highest environmental impacts comparing with oil and natural gas due to the high gases emission. Because of oil and gas well fields can cover a considerable area, typically 5 to 10 km² or more, the well pads themselves will only cover about 2% of the area. With directional drilling techniques, multiple wells can be drilled from a single pad to minimize the total wellhead area. While the renewable energy sources requires a large areas and land used for solar panels, building dams for hydro power, wind turbines onshore and offshore .. etc. to install and extract electricity energy.