> This is ludicrously off-base for fossil fuels, even if we're only talking about local pollutants from the plants themselves, nevermind things like Exxon Valdez or the pipelines or the act of mining.
The energy density of fossil fuels means that those side-effects would be worse with other sources of energy.
> is a result of urbanization mostly
Urbanization, made possible by the economical source of energy that is fossil fuels.
One oil well can produce an amount of free energy (24/7) that a 100 acre wind farm can only produce sporadically, assuming the well is a reasonably high volume producer. It depends on the specific well/geology.
The issue with fossil fuels is that they liberate fossil carbon, which has larger macro effects on the global environment. (It injects a lot of ‘new’ carbon into the carbon cycle)
They also do sometimes have some medium sized local effects from spills or contamination. But those can usually be controlled.
Geothermal is also usually ‘low footprint/high value’, but is only viable in specific limited locations.
Solar, wind, hydropower, tidal energy all have large physical footprints for the amount of energy they produce. Aka ‘low density’. All are also somewhat tied to specific, and often limited geology.
For solar for instance, areas with a lot of desert or other open ‘non productive’ land nearby, it’s great (assuming decent insolation). In areas where land is at a premium for other uses, or is very rugged/high maintenance, it definitely is a problem. Aka cities, certain types of high intensity farmland, heavily forested areas, high snow load/storm areas, etc.
Solar is not an awesome economic choice in Siberia, for example. It is an awesome economic choice in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, etc.
For areas with geography that supports it (typically the right kind of mountain ranges) and rainfall, hydropower is awesome, though has serious side effects on wildlife and river health. For a place that doesn’t have the right geography (say England), it’s a non starter.
> One oil well can produce an amount of free energy (24/7) that a 100 acre wind farm can only produce sporadically, assuming the well is a reasonably high volume producer. It depends on the specific well/geology.
Except it can't, a 100 acre wind farm can produce energy indefinitely while a oil well will eventually run dry.
The idea that fossil fuels are more ecologically favorable because it's 'dense' needs to address not only external factors, but that fossil fuels are non-renewable.
> Except it can't, a 100 acre wind farm can produce energy indefinitely while an oil well will eventually run dry.
Perhaps more true in that the wind (as far as we know) won’t run out but wind turbines do have a limited lifespan. After 20-30 years they usually need to be replaced. Some of the components are recycled but a significant portion - including the blades - are either not recyclable or not economically recyclable. Work is being done on this but there’s no guarantee it’ll produce dividends.
It depends entirely on what scope one considers for impact. Do we count maintenance roads? Total land area disturbed? Windmill foundation pads? Global co2 levels? Abandoned equipment in general? Noise levels over how much area?
What is ‘leftover’ from an abandoned well can be as simple as a buried 6” ground level plug, or as messy as an acre of abandoned equipment and a giant oil spill/hazmat area. Plus a billion tons of atmospheric co2 - which is invisible.
Oil is so widely used because it is incredibly cheap and easy to use at large scale, with minimal obviously visible consequence.
Because co2 is invisible. And as long as we don’t spill large quantities of it, it doesn’t seem to cause any visible problems.
The effect of the low density from wind, solar, etc. isn’t visible until you go to areas it is widely deployed and then do the math on how much energy they are actually producing, which is a small fraction of what would be produced if the same area was impacted to produce oil or nuclear.
The energy density of fossil fuels means that those side-effects would be worse with other sources of energy.
> is a result of urbanization mostly
Urbanization, made possible by the economical source of energy that is fossil fuels.