Question

III-3. Explain the difference in potential impact of voluntary and enforced conser- vation measures III-4. Describe the concept involved in, and identify one or more major advantage and disadvantage of, the new technology" a. geothermal b. solar-thermal c. solar-electric d. wind e. thermal gradients f. biomass III-5. Identify and explain each of the four major elements that should be addressed in a comprehensive energy policy for reducing susceptibility to severe energy crises. III-6. Describe the major impact on U.S. energy production or use of the following current issues: a. acid rain b. greenhouse effect c. Clean Air Act d. PURPA

3,6 please

Answer 1

3. Difference in potential impact of voluntary and enforced conser-

vation measures:

Voluntary measures:

1. Review national visions, goals and targets to ensure that they include elements of integration of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures for increasing habitat connectivity and decreasing habitat fragmentation at the landscape and seascape scale;
2. (b) Identify key species, ecosystems and ecological processes for which fragmentation is a key issue and which can benefit from improved connectivity, including those species, ecosystems and ecological processes that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and those species that may shift their range in response to climate change impact;
3. Identify and prioritize important areas to improve connectivity and to mitigate the impacts of fragmentation of landscapes and seascapes, including areas that create barriers and bottlenecks for annual and seasonal species movement, for various life stages, and for climate adaptation, and areas that are important for maintaining ecosystem functioning (e.g., riverine flood plains);
4. Conduct a national review of the status and trends of landscape and seascape habitat fragmentation and connectivity for key species, ecosystems and ecological processes, including a review of the role of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, in maintaining landscape and seascape connectivity, and any key gaps;
5. Identify and prioritize the sectors most responsible for habitat fragmentation, including transportation, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, mining, tourism, energy, infrastructure and urban development, and develop strategies to engage them in developing strategies for mitigating the impacts on protected areas and protected area networks including other effective area-based conservation measures, and areas under active restoration programmes;
6. Review and adapt landscape and seascape plans and frameworks (both within and across sectors), including, for example, land-use and marine spatial plans, and sectoral plans, such as subnational land-use plans, integrated watershed plans, integrated marine and coastal area management plans, transportation plans, and water-related plans, in order to improve connectivity and complementarity and reduce fragmentation and impacts;
7. Prioritize and implement measures to decrease habitat fragmentation within landscapes and seascapes and to increase connectivity, including the creation of new protected areas and the identification of other effective area-based conservation measures, as well as indigenous and community conserved areas, that can serve as stepping stones between habitats, the creation of conservation corridors to connect key habitats, the creation of buffer zones to mitigate the impacts of various sectors, to enhance the protected and conserved areas estate, and the promotion of sectoral practices that reduce and mitigate their impacts on biodiversity, such as organic agriculture and long-rotation forestry. 11 See UNDP. 2016.

Enforced conservation measures:

(a) Identify, map and prioritize areas important for essential ecosystem functions   and services, including ecosystems that are important for food (e.g., mangroves for fisheries), for climate mitigation (e.g., carbon-dense ecosystems, such as forests, peatlands, mangroves), for water security (e.g., mountains, forests, wetlands and grasses that provide both surface and groundwater), for poverty alleviation (e.g., ecosystems that provide subsistence, livelihoods and employment), and for disaster risk reduction (e.g., ecosystems that buffer impacts from coastal storms, such as reefs, seagrass beds, floodplains);

(b) Review and update sectoral plans to ensure that the many values provided by protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are recognized and incorporated into sectoral plans;

(c) Develop targeted communications campaigns aimed at the various sectors, both government and private, that depend upon the biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services provided by protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, including agriculture, fisheries, forestry, water, tourism, national and subnational security, development, and climate change, with the objective of increasing awareness of the value of nature for their sectors;

(d) Review and revise existing policy and finance frameworks to identify opportunities to improve the enabling policy and finance environment for sectoral mainstreaming;

(e) Encourage innovative finance, including investors, insurance companies and others, to identify and finance new and existing protected areas, and other effective area-based measures and restoration of key degraded protected areas to deliver on essential ecosystem functions and services and promote financial models that promote the sustainability of long-term protected area systems;

(f) Assess and update the capacities required to improve the mainstreaming of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, including capacities related to creating enabling policy environments, to spatial mapping of essential ecosystem functions and services, and to assessing the multiple values of ecosystem functions and services

6.major impact on U.S enegry production by

1.Acid rain:

Acid rain affects nearly everything. Plants, soil, trees, buildings and even statues can be transformed by the precipitation.

Acid rain has been found to be very hard on trees. It weakens them by washing away the protective film on leaves, and it stunts growth. A paper released in the online version of the journal of Environmental Science and Technology in 2005.

"By providing the only preserved soil in the world collected before the acid rain era, the Russians helped our international team track tree growth for the first time with changes in soil from acid rain," said Greg Lawrence, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who headed the effort. "We've known that acid rain acidifies surface waters, but this is the first time we've been able to compare and track tree growth in forests that include soil changes due to acid rain."

Acid rain can also change the composition of soil and bodies of water, making them uninhabitable for local animals and plants. For example, healthy lakes have a pH of 6.5 or higher. As acid rain raises the level of acidity, fish tend to die off. Most fish species can't survive a water pH of below 5. When the pH becomes a 4, the lake is considered dead.

It can additionally deteriorate limestone and marble buildings and monuments, like gravestones.

2.Green house effect:

The major greenhouse gases emitted by the United States as a result of human activity, and their percent share of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of 6,456.7 million metric tons in 2017 were¹

• Carbon dioxide (CO2)—81.6%
• Methane (CH4)—10.2%
• Nitrous oxide (N2O)—5.6%
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—2.5%
• Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen triflouride (NF3) combined—0.3%

There are other greenhouse gases that are not counted in United States or international greenhouse gas inventories:

• Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas. Most scientists believe that water vapor produced directly by human activity contributes very little to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) does not estimate emissions of water vapour.
• Ozone is technically a greenhouse gas because it has an effect on global temperature. However, at higher elevations in the atmosphere (stratosphere), where it occurs naturally, ozone is needed to block harmful ultraviolet light. At lower elevations of the atmosphere (troposphere), ozone is harmful to human health and is a pollutant regulated independently of its warming effects.

Greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming (short-wave) radiation from the sun but block infrared (long-wave) radiation from leaving the earth's atmosphere. This greenhouse effect traps radiation from the sun and warms the planet's surface. As concentrations of these gases increase, more warming occurs than would happen naturally.

3.Clean air act:

Although electricity is a clean and relatively safe form of energy when it is used, the generation and transmission of electricity affects the environment. Nearly all types of electric power plants have an effect on the environment, but some power plants have larger effects than others.

The United States has laws that govern the effects that electricity generation and transmission have on the environment. The Clean Air Act regulates air pollutant emissions from most power plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers the Clean Air Act and sets emissions standards for power plants through various programs such as the Acid Rain Program. The Clean Air Act has helped to substantially reduce emissions of some major air pollutants in the United States.

All power plants have a physical footprint (the location of the power plant). Some power plants are located inside, on, or next to an existing building, so the footprint is fairly small. Most large power plants require land clearing to build the power plant. Some power plants may also require access roads, railroads, and pipelines for fuel delivery, electricity transmission lines, and cooling water supplies. Power plants that burn solid fuels may have areas to store the combustion ash.

Many power plants are large structures that alter the visual landscape. In general, the larger the structure, the more likely it is that the power plant will affect the visual landscape.

4. The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA):

PURPA has been the most effective single measure in promoting renewable energy. Some credit the law with bringing on line over 12,000 megawatts of non-hydro renewable generation capacity. The biggest beneficiary of PURPA, though, has been natural gas-fired "cogeneration" plants, where steam is produced along with electricity.

Much has changed since PURPA was implemented. The price of oil has declined and supplies of natural gas have increased, driving down the cost of electricity. Many independent power producers signed contracts in the 1980s with prices that are higher than current spot market prices. Critics of PURPA say it is unfair to make utilities honor those contracts, and they blame independents for high power prices. In fact, all of these contracts were based on the avoided cost of electricity at the time; in other words, if utilities had built their own power plants, prices would be even higher now.

Critics also complain that PURPA is not compatible with an increasingly competitive power market. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 encouraged wholesale power competition, and recent rules by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) opened up transmission lines to all generators equally. But utilities are still able to generate wholesale power and compete unfairly with independents. And there is no other law that requires utilities to use competitive bidding to find the lowest power prices.

PURPA is the only existing federal law that requires competition in the utility industry and the only law that encourages renewables. Both of these goals must be preserved. But despite its benefits, PURPA is no longer much help for renewables. Due to current low avoided costs, few renewables are able to compete with new natural gas turbines. Technically, PURPA only calls for renewable energy if it is cost competitive with conventional polluting resources. Many of the benefits of renewables are not included in the price, such as clean air, but PURPA makes no provision for including these. By strictly interpreting the law, FERC has expressly forbidden non-price factors in PURPA decisions. Moreover, as the guaranteed prices of PURPA contracts signed in the 1980s expire, many renewable power generators are going out of business.