Environmental Technologies and Eco-innovation in the Czech ...

2 | Environmentally Friendly
Generation of Heat and Electric Energy
The mining of fossil fuels, which are a basic element for producing heat and electric
energy, negatively impacts the environment. The fossil fuels utilization is a primary
source of greenhouse gas emissions, and as a result of air pollutant emissions, it also
negatively impacts human health, soils and forest stands. Resources of primary raw
materials for energy are constantly getting smaller.
The Czech Republic places emphasis on the sustainable development of energy,
namely with what technology and with what consequences for the environment that
all energy generation process will have. Reduction of the emissions of particulate
matters and desulphurization, and eventually denitrification of thermal power
plants and large heat stations have already occurred in the Czech Republic. Today,
innovations in equipment are happening at a rapid pace. The purpose of these
innovations is to reduce emissions through more efficient generation.
However, none of these measures will eliminate the negative influences of the
generation of electricity and heat on the environment from the long-term point of
view. Another purpose of these innovations is, therefore, to ensure that greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere become stabilized at a level that would not
be hazardous either to mankind or to the climate 1 .
Considering the purposes that are specified for the area of energy in the State
Environmental Policy of the Czech Republic, energy sources that either have no or only
a negligible negative influence on the environment are becoming more important.
This includes nuclear energy and renewable energy sources: including the energy from
water, wind, sun, biomass, biofuel and geothermal energy.
1 decreasing the consequences of mankind’s activities on Earth’s climate – restriction in increasing the average temperature of
the Earth by 2 °C by 2100