Energy and electricity supply and demand: Implications for the global environment

tor several decades, electricity production and use have been a growing source of concern among individuals and groups monitoring the quality of the environment. Emissions from coalfired power plants, impacts of hydroelectric development, and risks associated with nuclear energy use have been particular targets for political action, dating to the early days of the environmental movement in the late 1960s. Environmental concerns sharpened in the late 1980s, as evidence of depletion of the Earth's protective ozone layer was combined with evidence of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (COi) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which could lead to global warming.