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Potential Adverse Environmental Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies
Citation:
MILLER, C. A. AND C. L. GAGE. Potential Adverse Environmental Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies. Chapter 12, Global Climate Change--The Technology Challenge. Springer, New York, NY, ISBN:9048131529:pg.377-416, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
book chapter
Description:
For Frank Princiotta’s book, Global Climate Change—The Technology Challenge The Fourth Assessment Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change (IPCC) in 2007 was unequivocal in its message that warming of the global climate system is now occurring, and found, with “very high confidence” that it was “very likely” that the observed warming was due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). To address the problem, the IPCC devel-oped an outline of approaches to reduce GHG emissions to desired levels. The ex-pected changes in technologies and practices needed to mitigate emissions of GHGs will lead to changes in the impacts to the environment associated with en-ergy production and use. Some of these changes will be beneficial, but others will not. This chapter identifies some of the potential environmental impacts (other than the intended mitigation of climate change) of implementing GHG mitigation strategies, but will not attempt to quantify those impacts or their costs. Included are discussions of the impacts of implementing energy efficiency and conservation measures, fuel switching in the power generation sector, nuclear and renewable energy, carbon capture and storage, use of biofuels and natural gas for transporta-tion fuels, and hydrogen and electricity for transportation energy. Environmental impacts addressed include changes in air emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur di-oxide, and particulate matter; impacts to water quality and quantity; increased mining of coal to meet the power demands of carbon capture systems and of met-als to meet demands for vehicle batteries; and impacts to ecosystems associated with biofuel production and siting of other renewable energy systems.
