Oil is reaching a new financial low, the economy is on the brink of collapse, we’ll have a new president in about a month and global warming still seems to be on the rise. We need to break the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, and move towards alternate resources that will help aid in our energy demands and help the environment at the same time. The best action would be to completely use renewable resources that are plentiful and don’t emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A renewable source is one that is replenished by natural processes at a rate comparable to or faster than the rate of consumption.
The main form of energy we use is electricity but this is generated from myriad of sources. Electricity is used from powering our wristwatches, to powering the lights in the great skyscrapers we work in, to making the clothes we wear, and to transporting those clothes to stores for us to buy them. We spend about $500 billion a year on electricity. The goal is to make the use of fossil fuels cleaner all the while aiming towards the use of sustainable renewable sources such as fusion and hydrogen. As I previously stated, funds to pay for this technology has slowed due to national debt and the bailout plan. And so unfortunately, what we mainly chose to work with, in our modern times, are the fossil fuels coal and oil.
Oil supplies 40% or our energy demands in the United States. It is found in 99% or the gas in our cars and trucks, which is a definite correlation to the high gas prices. The office of fossil energy has two issues to deal with concerning oil.
1.) Quick response to supply disruptions
2.) Keeping oil fields producing
The Strategic petroleum reserve was established to aide in this process after the oil embargo of 1973. It is considered the largest stock pile of government owned oil. The US is completely too dependent on foreign oil. In July of 2008 the top six countries we imported oil from were Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iraq. And in March of 2006 the US only produced 155,000 barrels of oil compared to the 1.96 million barrels we imported from Canada. The main problem now is the fear that we have reached the peak in petroleum production already. There has to be other sources besides oil.
A major investment would be in solar energy. It’s very important towards reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Some technologies used with solar energy would be photolvoltaitic cells which can convert solar energy directly into electricity. Concentrated solar power technologies are used to concentrate sunlight to run generators to create electricity. Also low temperature solar collectors can be used. These absorb heat energy and are used for heating water or rooms of houses and office buildings. Another major investment would be in hydrogen. It’s a clean energy carrier that can be produced naturally or commercially. It’s important seeing as it can be used to simultaneously reduce dependence on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse emissions. This would be crucial in the automotive business for manufacturing vehicles that don’t emit extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The downside is that the machinery needed to build fuel cells and make these hydrogen refueling stations that would be needed with the new cars would be extremely expensive. The positive to that is that building factories to manufacture these technologies would create jobs and impact the nation’s economy in a good way.
McCain’s plan for energy is called the Lexington Project. In it he talks about the clean car challenge which gives a $5,000 tax credit to persons who own cars that give off zero carbon emission, $300 million to the development of hybrid and full electric cars, and he supports flex-fuel cars. He wants to enforce CAFE standards where all carmakers must produce fuel efficient cars. And finally he want to give $2 billion to clean car technology, and by 2030 have 45 new nuclear plants up and running as an alternative to oil. Obama’s plan isn’t as clear cut as McCain’s but he is also looking for an alternative to oil. He wants 10% of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2012, and 25% by 2025. I’m more in favor of McCain’s plan for alternative sources due to the amount of information is available for it. I’m sure Obama’s plan is just as in depth as McCain’s but I couldn’t find enough for him to get my support in this arena.
The need to find alternative sources to oil in the grand scope of things is because it will directly affect the atmosphere, the environment and our way of living. We know that global warming is caused by the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the air, but things are pretty bad. The most that scientists feel can be kept in the air is about 385 parts per million (ppm) of these gases. They say that 450ppm or more equates to unrecoverable disaster. It has been calculated that between July 2007 and June 2008, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at 383.9ppm. We are getting extremely close to capacity and the more we continue to burn oil the closer we are getting to irreversible disaster on a global scale.
