transportation is more environmentally friendly than driving yourself,
and it is also more economical. It might be slightly less convenient than
driving yourself, but this might be an inconvenience with which you
can live.
Ultimately, factors such as convenience, economics, and available tech-
nology influence decisions about energy, power, and transportation that
affect the environment. Such technological trade-offs are common—we
make them all the time. In the summer, when your house is hot, you have
several options. The most environmentally friendly option is to open the
windows, but this can be inconvenient and might not work without a
breeze. The least environmentally friendly is to use air conditioning. It is
also the most expensive choice, but it would require only the flick of a
switch. A good compromise might be to use a fan. Fans require much less
electricity to run than air conditioning and are equally easy to use. Again,
this might be an environmentally friendly option with which you can live.
The most environmentally friendly options are usually selected when
they are also the most cost-effective and convenient. A hybrid vehicle typi-
cally offers similar performance to that of a regular automobile, but it has
much better gas mileage. Hybrid vehicles are more environmentally
friendly than regular automobiles. Although they currently cost more to
purchase than regular automobiles, the cost will come down as more
people express interest in purchasing them. The high initial cost is also
offset by lower fuel costs, due to the good gas mileage. Future hybrid
vehicles may truly represent a technology that is not only the most envi-
ronmentally friendly alternative to owning a regular car, but also the most
economical and convenient.
Chapter 26
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Agriculture: Environmentally Friendly Uses of Energy
There is no question that our supplies of fossil fuels will eventually run out. For this
reason, we need to develop alternate forms of energy. It is important that any form of energy
we use harms the environment as little as possible.
One renewable source of energy that is gaining popularity is using waste from cows to
produce electricity. The development of methane digesters has made it possible for a dairy
farm to produce enough energy to operate the farm and fuel the family car! Using material
created by the farm to operate the farm greatly reduces energy costs, and the methane
digester also reduces the amount of harmful gases released into the atmosphere.
A methane digester is located in a lagoon near the farm, and it captures naturally occur-
ring gas from the cow waste and converts it into electricity. Creating energy from dairy
biogas is a good solution because it turns waste into something usable, while decreasing air
and water pollution. The economic and environmental benefits the methane digester
provides are very promising. Digesters will be more common on farms in the future, and
they will help to make farms self-sufficient and less dependent on other sources of energy.