Sea level rise will overwhelm our coastal areas, creating huge economic and environmental losses. The Chesapeake Bay will be at risk from increased salinization and storm surges from the Atlantic. Increased cycles of severe drought and flooding will depress crop yields for our region's farmers. Our major cities, like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Norfolk, will see an increase in heat related deaths and hospitalizations. Businesses will suffer from the increased fragility of our power grid.
Clean energy is any source of energy that is renewable and produces little to no pollution. The most talked about forms of clean energy are solar and wind power.
Solar
power is derived from photovoltaic panels that capture the power of the sun to produce electricity or to heat water.
Wind
power comes from high-tech turbines mounted on towers, which spin when the wind blows, creating electricity.
Biomass
is a name for crops grown specifically to be used in energy production. When these crops are burned, they often produce far less air pollution and global warming gases than fossil fuels. Some examples of biomass are switch grass, corn, and soybeans.
Ocean
technology is fairly new but extremely promising. It captures the power of the ocean currents to spin turbines and create electricity.
Low Impact Hydro
power comes from hydro electric facilities that are built in such a way that they do minimal damage to rivers or the surrounding ecosystems.
Landfill Gas
is a term for electricity generated by burning the methane gas that comes off of landfills. Methane is the most potent global warming gas in existence and burning it to make electricity prevents it from migrating to our atmosphere and accelerating global warming.
While birds occasionaly crash into wind turbines during flight, studies and evidence show that there is no negative impact on bird populations. In fact, far more birds are killed by cell phone towers, tall buildings and house cats than wind turbines. Global warming and acid rain from coal-fired power plants pose a far more serious threat to birds and other wildlife than wind farms.
The wind industry and others have conducted many careful studies on the subject and will continue to work hard to ensure that wind farms operate in the best fashion possible.
In our region, a little more than half our electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. We also get about 20% from nuclear power, about 10% from oil, 5% from natural gas, and the rest mainly from hydropower and garbage incineration.
