Sustainability refers to something that is used and can be replenished in time to use it again. The United States is known for being innovative and moving forward in its development. What keeps the United States mobile and moving? We use fuel, more specifically gasoline. The United states has become more aware of the environment and have found out that gasoline is a precious resource and is not unlimited. Many people fear changing fuel, because they have gotten used to gasoline. One way for the United States to become more sustainable is to fix its fuel source problem. Oil is used in everything from cars, airplanes, boats and machines of various types. Gasoline is not sustainable. There is a limited amount of oil or natural gas in the world, and it takes such a long time for natural gas or oil to form in nature. One alternative to gasoline is ethanol. Ethanol is a biofuel made from corn. Currently, there are several gas stations that provide gas with some ethanol, usually about ten or fifteen percent. “A blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline, or E10, is approved for use in every vehicle sold in the U.S.; about one-third of America’s gasoline contains some ethanol.” (Energy Future Coalition 25-26). Although many are reluctant to change from gasoline to a more sustainable fuel, such as ethanol, changing would decrease our dependence on other countries for obtaining oil, it would have two fiscally advantages, and it would help the environment.
One of the reasons why gasoline use in the United States is not sustainable is because currently we are dependent on other countries for nearly half of the oil we use. About forty percent of our oil and gas is imported from outside the United States. Even though right now we are capable of sup...
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...ll be able to handle the corrosiveness of ethanol and engine damage will not occur. The volatile problem in cold weather can be easily fixed by adding a small amount of gasoline to the mixture. For the United States to be more sustainable as a country, we need to have a sustainable fuel source so that we can keep moving
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Ed Wallace. “The Great Ethanol Scam.” Bloomberg Businessweek. 2009. Web. May 5,
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“The Facts About Biofuels: Ethanol.” Energy Future Coalition. 2007. Web. May 6, 2014
The United States has had several scares throughout its history in terms of oil, most turn out to be over exaggerations of a small event. However, these scares highlight a massive issue with the U.S. and that issue is the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil. Why does it matter that our oil should come from over seas? In a healthy economy this probably wouldn’t be as relevant, but the U.S.’s economy is not exactly healthy at the moment. There are 4 things that I would like to address: what the problem is, how it affects us, what some solutions are, and what solutions I feel are best.
Ethanol is a clean, renewable fuel made from plant material. Ethanol is cleaner than gasoline because it contains more oxygen. The added oxygen increases ethanol's octane rating. The octane rating is the fuel's ability to resist “knock”. Ethanol has a higher octane rating than gasoline. Ethanol above fifteen percent can damage vehicles that are designed to run on gasoline. An ethanol/gasoline (E10) blend is cheaper than just gasoline. The blend does reduce fuel economy by up to 3.3 percent. Car companies have started to produce flex-fuel vehicles. These flex-fuel vehicles can run on fuel with up to 85 percent ethanol. The main problem is
The author proposes different partial solutions for the "oil problem": a surtax on gasoline consumption, development of mass transport and alternative energy sources, fuel efficiency. In the actual context, these propositions are more or less wishful thinking. A complete change of mind will only arrive when the oil price will reach astronomical heights and when all cheap oil sources will be dried up.
Currently, the most important factor in the rise of gas prices is the increasing cost of crude oil. Unfortunately, the United States has three percent of the world’s oil reserves. (Horsley) In 2009, the United States was third in crude oil production as well as the world’s largest petroleum consumer. (e. I. Administration) Such consumption required and still requires the United States to import petroleum/crude oil from other countries.
Our dependency in foreign oil is reflected in our pocket and every time we visit the gas station. We are a war, a tyrant or natural disaster away from a $5 gallon gas. The Gas Replacer will liberate you from the fear of when, and not what if, we’ll have a gas crisis. The price of biofuel is more constant than gas, and there are little surprises, because we can control the source of production.
The problem today is the gas companies make too much on their products. Shell's profits jumped enormously in only three months. The Company announced an 80% jump in earnings for the last three months, to $3.25 billion (Shell Posts Record Profits). Ethanol would allow these profits to go straight to
Cellulosic ethanol will not be able to meet its mandated output because in the past four years since demonstration and pilot sites started popping up it has only just started t...
The United States can decrease its dependence on oil-producing nations and improve the environment without robbing every citizen's pocketbook. The gasoline used in most cars today produces pollution, endangers people's health, forces us to be dependent on OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Companies) or other oil production organizations, and contributes to global warming. The main reason people have not converted to cleaner, healthier fuel is that hybrid and electric cars are more expensive than the cars and gasoline we are using now. However, we could implement a program for selling cleaner fuel at a lower cost than it is now offered. If this program were organized correctly, the increased costs would be minimal in the long run and the benefits would be enormous. After considering several possibilities, I concluded that alcohol-burning cars are more practical than other environmentally friendly options because electric and h...
Ethanol production was developed in hopes of severing our ties with fossil fuels in favor of alternative energy, such as biofuels. Although, VOCs emissions are released during production of ethanol in a factory, the quality of air is greatly improved when burning ethanol versus fossil fuels. Burning ethanol instead of fossil fuels reduces the amount of cancer-causing greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere. Ethanol production ranks at the bottom of industrial water usage, but is still not out of the woods with the abundance of water usage needed in corn feedstock and ethanol manufacturing and processing facilities. Many acres of land are needed to grow corn crops, however, many corn farmers are successful in growing more corn on less acreage.
Biofuels, fuels that provide energy using relatively recent organic sources, have been around just as long as cars have. In fact, the first cars ran on peanut oil. Henry Ford, founder of a multimillion dollar American car company, planned to fuel his massively successful Model T’s with ethanol (National Geographic 2013.) However, this revolutionary idea was swept under the rug when the discovery of massive petroleum deposits kept gasoline and diesel cheap and affordable. As 2014 rolls around, consumers are starting see that the amount of petroleum in the Earth is shrinking and the same story goes for their wallets (Avro 2012.) Not only does burning gas and diesel empty out the wallet, it is also slowly covering the Earth with a warm carbon dioxide blanket that causes global warming. Transportation, which is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses (Biofuel Association of Australia 2013), is dependent on finite amounts of gas and diesel for its energy needs so it is very important we move towards a more renewable and sustainable fuel source. Biofuels, both ethanol and biodiesel, have the potential to fuel transportation efficiently and drastically reduce the carbon footprint, thus reducing the warm blanket of carbon dioxide on the Earth.
The United States as well as the rest of the world are dealing with the issue that the world supply of oil is dwindling. Ever since our peak consumption year in 2005 the United States has been a major consumer of crude oil and petroleum products. As of 2012 according to the U.S Energy Information Administration “The United States consumed 18.6 million barrels per day of petroleum products, making us the world’s largest petroleum consumer.” The U.S. has long been dependent on foreign petroleum products to meet our ever growing energy demands and consumption. With the revolutionary and controversial rise of fracking it is now possible for the United States to become a self energy sufficient country. With fracking, the proper technology and economic
The United States spends billions of dollars on importing oil. This is represented as almost two-thirds of the country’s entire annual trade deficit. Now that there is more access to gas deposits, there is no need to rely on other countries around the world for fossil fuels. America can instead rely on their own resources to provide energy for the residents. America is already the world's largest producer of natural gas thanks to shell drilling and the country's sits on 2 of the world's largest gas fields gas production has soared 20 percent in five years in the United States now should have enough gas to last generations soon the nation will begin exporting gas and unimaginable possibility just a few years ago when energy supplies look set to run out in the construction of gas importing facilities was considered a matter of national urgency (Zuckerman, G.,
The United States has become one of the leading producers of natural gas in the world, and now is an exporter of natural gas as well. As natural gas imports increase, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, ?Expects the United States to
Indeed, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) predicts that domestic petroleum consumption will increase to 60 Btu by the year 2025. This statistic, in and of itself, is a matter of concern with respect to the greenhouse gas emissions that result from petroleum combustion. However, perhaps more disconcerting is the fact that U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 and has continued to fall since then (Campbell et. al., 1998). Therefore, the American public has turned to foreign oil, in particular Middle Eastern oil, to supplement its increase in demand. In an age where terrorism is at the forefront of people's minds, we still continue to import oil from the same nations that supposedly harbor so-called terrorist groups. The fact is that we are unwilling to responsibly face our energy future and instead choose to maintain a policy of increasing oil supply through importation.
The U.S dependency on foreign oil presents many negative impacts on the nation’s economy. The cost for crude oil represents about 36% of the U.S balance of payment deficit. (Wright, R. T., & Boorse, D. F. 2011). This does not affect directly the price of gas being paid by consumers, but the money paid circulates in the country’s economy and affects areas such as; the job market and production facilities. (Wright, R. T., & Boorse, D. F. 2011). In addition to the rise in prices, another negative aspect of the U.S dependency on foreign crude oil is the risk of supply disruptions caused by political instability of the Middle East. According to Rebecca Lefton and Daniel J. Weiss in the Article “Oil Dependence Is a Dangerous Habit” in 2010, the U.S imported 4 million barrels of oil a day or 1.5 billion barrels per year from “dangerous or unstable” countries. The prices in which these barrels are being purchased at are still very high, and often lead to conflict between the U.S and Middle Eastern countries. Lefton and Weiss also add that the U.S reliance on oil from countries ...