Below are the few ways electricity is produced.

Burning of coal 

For every kilowatt of electricity produced by burning coal, about 2.095 pounds of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, thus, harming the ozone layer. This way of producing electricity is the most polluting way of producing electricity. It also reaps greater amounts of electricity. Not only does this way of producing electricity harms the environment, it also causes lung cancer to humans.

Nuclear Fission

  When nuclear fission occured, no harmful gases or CO2 is released STRAIGHT. However, when the plant construction and the overall cycle are taken into account, emission increases about 400% than that of renewable energy.

Burning of natural gas

About 1.32 pounds of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere for every kilowatt of electricity produced. It is estimated that half of the natural gases on/in Earth have not been discovered or used yet. However, the gases remained is in much smaller portion than what had been left years ago.

Hydroelectricity

This type of electricity is rather common and popular in the west countries (America etc). However, effects of buildings dams have often been underestimated. Huge amounts of lands, which are homes of living being plants and animals alike, are also destroyed. The population of fish is also affected when their habitat is destroyed. This could cause an unbalanced food chain due to the sudden decrease of fishes, causing species to go extinct.

These are some of the ways that electricity is produced. As we can see, majority of the ways does harm to the environment. The ozone layer is affected due to the carbon dioxide that is emitted, lives of animals and plants are lost to make way for hydroelectric dams. It is just not worth it. We are harming the environment just to produce electricity for all of us. If we were to start conserving electricity, we can also help the environment.

The pie chart below shows where US got its electricity.