Electricity and the Environment

Looking for a way to help the environment and your pocketbook at the same time?

Every day, thousands of tons of coal are burned in Pennsylvania to produce steam, which is then used to rotate turbines that produce electricity. That electricity travels hundreds of miles through various wires and eventually into our homes. Although stricter regulations on mining and air pollution have been implemented, there is no better way to cut down on environmental impacts associated with electricity generation than to reduce the use of electricity in your home and office. Simply shutting off lights, televisions, computers and other appliances when they are not in use can reduce the use of electricity significantly.

If the environment is not enough incentive to reduce your energy use, keep in mind that for every kilowatt-hour you consume, the electric company charges you. With the money you save you could take friends or family to dinner or join Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and help us in “saving the places we care about by connecting people to the natural world.”

In the meantime, just imagine if we could harvest the energy in lightning:

• Lightning raises the temperature of the air by as much as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,700 degrees Celsius), and
  contains a hundred million electrical volts.
• Lightning detection systems in the United States monitor an average of 25 million strokes of lightning from clouds to
  ground during some 100,000 thunderstorms every year. It is estimated that Earth as a whole is struck by an average of
  more than a hundred lightning bolts every second - more than eight million a year.

And, some scientists think that lightning may have played a part in the evolution of living organisms. The immense heat and other energy given off during a stroke has been found to convert elements into compounds that are found in organisms.

Source: National Geographic at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts.html. Today's photo is by Steven Nayes (http://www.pbase.com/snayes).

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