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Global warming was at best a curious subject till a few years ago, but it has now reached alarming proportions and is engaging the attention of both scientists and the common people.

Greenhouse gases are the reason for the raise in global temperature and the main cause of global warming.

Carbon Dioxide (CO₂),

Methane (CH₄)

and Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) are the natural greenhouse gases and

man-made greenhouse gases include Chloro Fluoro Carbons - CFC's.

This is similar to a glasshouse, which is a structure for non seasonal gardening. This produces an effect by which sun light goes through the glass of the structure to pass to the earth, but blocks the heat and does not allow it to pass from the earth back to the atmosphere, thus keeping the structure warm within the glasshouse.

This is shown in the following global warming diagram.

Figure 1

Source: US Environmental Protection Agency and NASA

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In the United States most of the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas.

Figures 2 and 3 below show sources and consumption of electrical power in the US.

Power Generation in the US for the year 2000 shows that coal is the most dominant source and is the primary cause for CO₂ emissions as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Figure 3 below shows the breakup of the different sectors of consumers utilizing electrical power during the 50 years (1950 - 2000) in the US.

Figure 3

Power generation and consumption both result in greenhouse gas emissions as we can see in the figure below.

Figure 4

The breakup of these emissions for the different sectors was as follows: (approximately)

Source: Energy Information Administration, Dept. of Energy, US Government.

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