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One of the most important concerns of the first world countries these days is the development of new, better power sources for all of our things. We have tried many different ways to generate power throughout the centuries, and they have all been useful to a degree. What faces us now is the Holy Grail of clean energy, a way to create power without waste.

For all the technological advances in this field of study, the most responsible power generation approaches, at least in terms of environmental issues, is still animal driven machinery. This is still the way things are done in much of the world, with teams of draft animals pulling plows, loads, and turning wheels which drive machines. If nothing else, it is usually possible to power things with human effort.

This approach is great for small communities or homesteads, but it won't be efficient enough to produce large amounts of electricity. Even a little apartment complex will easily require more power than can possibly be produced by an animal driven plant.

Even today in the United States, the reliance on coal burning electricity generation is high. One of the big problems with coal as a generating fuel is that the smoke produced is highly polluting. Some reports estimate that the number of Americans who die each year from mercury and other toxins thus produced is in the thousands.

Hydroelectric power has long been seen as a reasonable and more environmentally sound form of generation. This too is not without its pitfalls, however. The creation of dams and spillways necessarily impacts aquatic life in the region. There are also long term effects to altering the course of a river which may manifest themselves in unstable water tables or flooding.

Then, of course, there is nuclear power. Many people are unreasonable afraid of nuclear generating stations. They focus too heavily on names like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The real problem with nuclear stations, however, is not that they might fail and destroy the neighborhood. The real problem is the waste that is left over. We don't know what to do with it, and we know it will remain highly dangerous for hundreds of years.

When it comes to the environmentally safe generation of electricity, the two main areas of interest are currently solar and wind power. In some places the research also includes ways to power things through the use of tide force generation, but this can only be done if you have a coast.

Wind and solar have their problems, too. Fields of turbines may pose a threat to migratory birds, and huge photovoltaic arrays can be terrifically hurtful to the ground environment of many smaller animals. Any development at all is likely to run into concerns about tortoises or birds or tiny fish. We have become enlightened enough about our place in the world that we now factor in the concerns of the weakest and smallest creatures in our quest for clean energy. With any luck we will be able to figure something out before we do irreparable damage to things, assuming we haven't already done so.