Question

Can any sources of energy be pollution free? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Hint:
1. Think of different types of energy sources and then look for better alternatives keeping pollution in mind.
2. Pollution free energy sources should have no harmful remnant at the end of energy production.

Complete step by step solution:
As a general statement, No source of energy can be pollution-free. Fossil fuel burning and other natural gas use has such an immense effect on the atmosphere that the temperature has increased more than 1C in the recent century. Every source of energy even if it's renewable, has one or the other type of pollution. For example, the nuclear waste generated from nuclear plants are very dangerous to the environment and the organisms.

Other energy sources, such as wind energy, solar energy, hydro electric energy and geothermal energy aren't totally pollution free either, i.e., they contribute to the pollution in some way. Consider solar energy, it's renewable, sustainable and totally inexhaustible unlike fossil fuels which are finite. But if we go in depth, we'll find that the products, and processes that go in making solar panels or the devices, aren't pollution checked necessarily. Also at the end of the device life, they may not be recycled and result in soil,ocean pollution etc. Similarly we can think for other energy sources as well. But we can surely say that many of the renewable sources of energy are much less polluting as compared to the conventional energy sources.

Note:
1. Energy sources itself may be polluting or non polluting.
2. We can categorize the energy source's pollution to directly polluting energy sources and indirectly polluting energy sources.