Environmental Concerns

September 18, 2012

Concern regarding the environmental impacts associated with conventional energy has been increasing, prompting governments and the private sector to promote clean energy technologies as a way to mitigate these concerns. Indeed, environmental benefits have become a major justification for switching to cleaner energy sources; however, similar to conventional energy sources, clean energy technologies also have environmental and social externalities (along with previously mentioned economic, technology, and scalability issues) that must factor into decisions regarding their use. Yet, relative to the incumbent fuel mix, the shift toward cleaner technologies will have a lower impact on the environment than a business-as-usual scenario.