Hydropower Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Hydropower - Essay Example This paper also deals with the uses of hydropower as the renewable energy resources in the environment. Hydropower is also known as waterpower. In simple words, it refers to the power of electricity produced from water currents. Hydropower energy thus involves hydroelectric dams as well as reservoirs, underground waterways and tidal plants among others. Hydropower is widely considered as more efficient, as compared to other energy sources, as it helps in decreasing the cost of electricity and increasing the reliability as well as flexibility of energy produced. Hydropower is however noted to be a costly method for the production of energy (7). It is worth mentioning in this context that energy is required for the progress of mankind and therefore, energy must be available in sufficient quantities along with affordable prices for the consumers, which the hydropower plants often fail to suffice. New and advanced technologies are also required for the availability of hydropower energy as well as for the safety of the environment. However, besides the fact that hydropower is regarded as a cost consuming energy production source, it is also perceived to impose strong negative affects to the environment, especially when concerning marine biological lifecycle (7). Nevertheless, one of the benefits of hydropower is its superior ability for fossil-fuel generation. Hydropower is also considered to protect from greenhouse gas emission at large quantities. It has often been argued that the developed hydropower will have the potential of making large contributions towards improvements in the living standard of developing countries, making energy available at cheaper rates. Compulsions of the recent era to suffice rising global demand, resulting in higher costs for fuel base energy sources have further led mankind to innovate new sources of energy, one of those being the water source, which has however been in use since traditional times (8). A few noteworthy

Green Supply Chain Management. 2250 words Essay

Green Supply Chain Management. 2250 words - Essay Example Baojuan also called the same as Environmentally Conscious Supply Chain Management which meant the use of new means to biologically design â€Å"raw materials purchasing, manufacture organizing, distributing and supplying, consuming, and recycling† (2009:122). Green supply chain is a growing trend among companies worldwide as part of their customer responsibility effort to weave environmentally sound practice into their business operations (Barnett 2011). There are several issues that the green supply chain aims to deal with. The most obvious issue is environmental concern where companies are reducing their carbon footprint to the effect of mitigating pollution with the ultimate objective of keeping carbon emission within the regenerative capacity of ecosphere. This is aligned in the consideration of the growing number of customers who are now conscious of the environmental practice of business enterprise coupled with the benefit that effective green supply chain management can in fact increase operational efficiency and reduce operational cost that made green supply chain a business imperative (Zhu 2012). 2. Compare the differences between the traditional supply chain and the green supply chain. ... It could also add value in the process by creating the competitive infrastructure such as monitoring supply chain activities with the aim of creating net value for the company. This would also include leveraging the worldwide logistics, matching anticipated demand with supply monitoring the same. It is also in the supply chain that involves specific functions in an organization such as customer support and after sales services. The traditional supply chain falls into two categories which are internal supply chain and external supply chain. The internal chain involves activities within the organization which includes the production and distribution process involved in the purchasing department, production department, warehousing, sales network composed of supply and demand. The external supply chain on the other hand relates to activities without the organization that includes procurement of raw materials from the suppliers â€Å"manufacturers, storage, transportation, retailers and, ultimately, the network of supply and demand of consumers. It consists of two streams: upstream and downstream† (Lai et al 2012:113). These activities can be summed up in the figure below. Figure 1. Traditional Supply Chain (Google.com) Green supply chain The green supply chain is the integration of a company’s effort to make its traditional supply chain â€Å"green† or environmentally friendly including all the processes in the company. These activities would include the previously mentioned â€Å"product design, purchases, product design, purchasing, manufacturing processes and the delivery of ?nal product to end customers (Lai et al 2012:113). The biggest difference in green supply chain from the traditional supply chain would be the inclusion of