Mark Lyttleton provides both paid and pro-bono business mentorship services to companies operating across a broad range of different industries. He has a special interest in supporting enterprises created to achieve a positive planetary impact. This article will compare different sources of electricity, examining their impact on the environment – particularly in terms of land use. For information about energy trends in the United Kingdom throughout 2021, please view the attached infographic.
All energy sources have an environmental impact, whether gas, coal, renewables or nuclear. Every source of energy takes up water and land, as well as some form of natural resources such as manufacturing or fuel.
Nevertheless, there are vast differences in environmental impacts between sources. Take for example fossil fuels, which emit far more greenhouse gases per unit of energy generated than renewables or nuclear. Fossil fuels are also a major source of air pollution, killing many more people than renewables or nuclear. The attached PDF contains more information about the dangers of fossil fuel-generated air pollution.
Environmentalists and policymakers are concerned about the impact of use of land by the energy industry for a variety of different reasons. First, there is the technical question of whether there is even sufficient land to meet the population’s energy needs from a particular source. In addition, there are aesthetic concerns regarding the visual impact on landscapes incurred by such technologies. There is also the question of land use impacting natural habitats and the environment.
One part of total land use is the space needed for a power plant, i.e. a coal power plant’s square footage or the total area covered by solar panels. More land is also required to mine coal or dig minerals and metals for manufacturing solar panels.
According to a report by Our World In Data, there are vast differences between sources. The report revealed that nuclear energy is the most land-efficient energy source, with 50-times less land required per unit of electricity generated than coal and up to 27-times less than on-ground solar panels.
Wind is another obvious choice and one that should be considered different in the context of land use. First, offshore wind farms may take up space, but they are located at sea rather than on land. In addition, onshore wind farms are also treated differently because the land beneath them can be used for other activities, particularly agriculture.
The embedded video provides information about the Paris Agreement, exploring the reasons why the international community is shifting away from fossil fuels.