The college of engineering discusses the necessity of using power plants without emissions

Prof. Dr. Taleb al-Saffar, the instructor in the department of chemical engineering at them college of engineering, university of Baghdad, gave a lecture entitled “electric power plants without emissions” as part of a series of the scientific lectures to keep pace with the technological modernity. He dealt with the damage caused by carbon dioxide, the necessity of its retention to contribute in lessening the level of climate change through compression and storing in geological formations, ocean,  mineral carbonates or using it in industrial processes. The lecturer stated that electricity generating is the first stage in the process of the delivering electricity to consumers by distribution stations. Electricity is generated by electromechanical generators that are basically operated by thermo engines by means of chemical combustion processes, nuclear fission, kinetic energy of flowing water, wind, solar or geothermal energy. The study revealed that most scientists agree that emissions of polluting gases cause global warming resulted from generating electricity by fossil fuels. In the United States, for example, electricity contributes in nearly 40% of emissions caused by transportation,i.e , nearly one-third of U.S. production of carbon dioxide. The process of burning fossil fuels is responsible for 65 % of all sulfur dioxide emissions, which is the basic element in acid rain, the fourth highest common source of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide. In 2011, the British parliament gave a statement that the levels of carbon emissions of nuclear energy was less about three times per kilowatt hour than those that are generated by solar energy, less four times than those caused by clean coal and less than 36 times than traditional coal. Although that generation of electricity by solar energy is an friendly process with environment, but the process of manufacturing photo voltaics is using large amounts of water and toxic chemicals such as phosphorus and arsenic. Because of the stringent environmental regulations in the United States, PV cells manufacturing are produced in countries with lower regulations such as China which produces almost half of the PV panels in the world. The lecture ended with extensive discussions, exchange of views, so prof. Dr. Ali al-Kalidar from the department of electrical engineering thanked Dr. Taleb al-Saffar and wished continuing the scientific cooperation with the departments of the college of engineering.