The world is dependent on fossil fuels as the prime source of power to meet our energy demands. What are fossil fuels? “Fossil fuels come in three major forms-coal, oil, and natural gas. Because fossil fuels are a finite resource and cannot be replenished once they are extracted and burned, they are not considered renewable.” - (United States Environmental Protection Agency) When the supply of fossil fuels is completely exhausted, what will we rely on to meet our energy needs? An alternative option available that should be implemented more in our use is renewable energy, energy that can be replenished, such as solar, wind, and hydropower. - (United States Environmental Protection Agency) Even though the dependency on fossil fuels is tremendous, …show more content…
A few available forms of renewable resources are solar, wind, and hydropower. How we are able to harness the power that these sources are able to provide vary. Solar energy is the energy from the sun that is able to be captured through what is called solar panels, where these panels are either heated or lit up by the sun creating electricity. - (Solar Energy) Wind energy is harnessed by the wind in our atmosphere through a mechanical process in which the wind turns the blades on a wind turbine. Wind turbines are giant wheels rotated by the wind to generate electricity. - (How Do Wind Turbines Work?) Hydropower generates electricity by using water to power machinery. How this happens is that flowing water is captured by generators or turbines and turned into electricity. It has the similar method in which wind energy is captured through kinetic energy; a process where energy is obtained by an object due to its momentum. These three different resources have an inexhaustible energy supply. If these resources are unlimited then why aren’t they implemented more into our use? A few contributing factors are that renewable resources are not always reliable, the cost of using renewable energy is too high, and we can 't store up the energy produced by renewable resources. If the sun isn’t shining, wind isn’t blowing or if there’s no water flowing we can’t rely on these resources unlike fossil fuels which we can store up. Using fossil fuels is actually cheaper than using renewable resources. It cost more to generate electricity from the resources and no one wants to pay more for their monthly utility bill. The final reason would be that most of renewable resources require constant movement, kinetic energy, or to be constantly be present. If one day they are not present we won’t have
Semantically fossil fuels are a renewable source of energy, however given that it takes millions of years for the organic materials to be broken down and converted, it is wholly unrealistic to consider them as renewable. As the demand for fossil fuels increases and source diminish faster than they are replentished, the United States must work towards a renewable energy independent state using truly renable sources, both technically and in practice. With changes in the home, as consumers in buying goods and with alternative fuel sources backed by public trust and governmental involvement, the United States could drastically lessen its dependence on fossil fuels, foreign and domestic.
Why don’t we use more renewable energy sources? What role do they currently play? According to Energy Kids, in 2008 renewable resources only produced seven percent of the energy that we used. One reason we don’t use a lot of renewable energy
In 1908, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) predicted that the total future supply of U.S. oil would not exceed 23 billion barrels. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted that only 5.7 billion barrels of oil remained. In 1920, the USGS proclaimed the peak in U.S. oil production was almost reached. In 1939, the Department of Interior declared that there was only 13 years of oil production remaining. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter claimed, “We are now running out of oil.” Despite these predictions, the U.S. has produced over 200 billion barrels of oil since the early 1900’s. (The Futurist, 1997)
Hydrogen lies in one of the copious replacements for gasoline. It is not an energy source such as oil, but an energy carrier that is produced instead of digging and finding it underground. Though replacing fossil fuels by hydrogen fuel cell is very hard and costs a great deal, for the most part, hydrogen fuel cell is a zero carbon emission fuel which highly reduces the carbon emissions that causes pandemic global warming. Hydrogen is very helpful for nature by cause of replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen fuel cells might end global warming once and for all.
From the home to factories, families and industries are reliant on the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels to feed the needs of the everyday human. Fossil fuels are the main source of energy over clean, renewable sources such as the use of wind, solar energy, and water to power our homes, schools, and industries. In fact, about 85% of energy use comes from fossils fuels. The main reason being that using fossil fuels is cheaper than wind and solar energy. “For nearly two centuries, fossil fuels have been the cheapest source of energy” and widely abundant (Marburger, A global framework: international aspects of climate change). However, overtime fossil fuels will disappear due to the lack of time to replenish itself with the human races rapid use of it. Despite its current status of availability, there are many controversial issue in using fossil fuels; the most prominent issue being that it is the cause of rapid climate
The dependency on fossil fuels is a pressing issue for not only America, but the whole world. People everywhere continue to search for solutions to the growing problem by taking steps to create a cleaner environment, reduce the price of fuel consumers pay and most importantly, protect the nation’s security from foreigners. America, being one of the leading consuming nations of fossil fuels, is negatively affecting the environmental, economic and political aspects pertaining to its dependency on non-renewable resources.
Over the last two centuries, humanity has become increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. Over that time, the consequences of constantly burning fossil fuels have accumulated into a threat to industrialized cities. The burning of fossil fuels causes acid rain to shower on cities and ecosystems around the world, tormenting their inhabitants. The increasingly deadly pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels has caused the deaths of many people around the world by causing respiratory problems. Not only has the pollution worsened, but the supply of fossil fuels is not limitless – as humanity’s reliance increases the supply decreases, and that is all the more reason to break humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels should be replaced with cleaner alternatives because fossil fuels cause environmental hazards, are non-renewable, and are detrimental to human health.
We depend on energy; nothing in our daily lives could be possible without it. Electricity primarily comes from burning fossil fuels or using nuclear reactors. But the plain truth is, we are running out of fossil fuels. Our known oil deposits will run out in approximately 35 years, and if we increase the use of natural gas and coal to make up for the energy loss, our natural gas will last for 45 years and coal deposits will deplete in 75 years.
The United States currently relies heavily on coal, oil, and natural gas for its energy. While the price of natural gas per barrel continues to plummet, the United States is constantly seeking new sources of renewable energy. Renewable energy consists of any type of natural resource (solar power, ocean power, wind power, rain, snow, etc.). that naturally and automatically replenishes itself. Renewable energy is important because it is infinite and everlasting, meaning our children and our children’s children will be able to utilize these resources long after we are gone.
The three fossil fuels- coal, crude oil, and gas slowly formed over millions of years. These days, we use fossil fuels to power everything- homes, buildings, cars, computers, lights, etc. However, fossil fuels deposits will run out soon, which is a huge problem. Extracting, transporting, and burning fossil fuels are dangerous. There are also many negative biological and environmental impacts that result from the use of fossil fuels, such as ocean acidification, groundwater contamination, land subsidence, oil spills, and global warming. Therefore, we should be trying to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and explore alternative energy sources such as wind energy, hydroelectricity, and solar energy instead. Our world depends on fossil fuels, but they can also hurt us. Fossil fuels are both a blessing and a curse.
Energy can be put into two broad categories Renewable energy and none renewable energy. Renewable energy sources can be reused continually as they are abundantly found in nature. All of them are non-polluting but devices used to collect the energy may impact the environment adversely. They are free but producing storage equipment or converting them into another form of energy may be costly.
Why do we need to rely on renewable sources? Most of the energy that we use today come from fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and oil. All of these resources are non-renewable, it can finish one day. In order to have a better world and a healthy environment for the future, people are trying to obtain energy from natural resources instead of non-renewable sources. In the lecture “Renewable energy resources” (2014), Mistry focuses on some advantages and disadvantages of renewable energy. There are different kind of resources that we can use in order to produce renewable energy. Solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power are just some of the kinds of renewable energy that might be the best options to obtain energy because they come from
Renewable energy is the future, and we should embrace it. The planet we live on is teeming with so many untapped renewable energy sources. These include energy from the sun, water, wind, geothermal sources, and even biomass sources such as the use of ethanol from corn. (Renewable Energy Sources in the United States) While these are all great sources of alternative energy, I want to focus mainly on solar energy. My question is why aren’t more of our cars, homes, and businesses running on solar power? Many other countries have started to use several if not all of these renewable energy sources, yet we have barely begun to tap into the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to renewable energy. So why are we, United States of America as a whole, still stuck in the old world thinking of non-renewable fossil fuels? We have a very bright future ahead of us indeed if we simply pick up the pace on even only one of the many renewable sources.
Fossil fuels are energy that is in the form of coal, oil, or natural gas that comes from organisms from millions of years ago. The cycle to create fossil fuels takes millions of years to form and is therefore considered a nonrenewable resource of energy. Fossil fuels have been the primary source of energy for man ever since the age of machines, but one of “the main problem[s] with fossil fuels is that there is a limited amount of them” (Problem with Fossil Fuel). As countries become more developed, like the United States, they too will become more thirsty and dependent for fossil fuels. “In 2004, America spent approximately $270 billion to fufill its oil need.” and “90% of all transportation is fueled by oil” (Nakaya 10). With the global rate of fossil fuels going up it is inevitable that they are going to run out, forcing countries to choose an alternative energy source. The other huge problem with dependence on fossil fuels is the effect that the emissions have on the climate. Fossil fuels are made of carbon chains and in order for the reaction...
Fuels like coal, and oil that once were a fine innovation in creating energy are now rapidly deleting and one day will be gone forever; energy that won’t last is often referred to as non-renewable energy. Besides being set up to fail and become inefficient in the future, fossil fuel energy is not clean to use and poses several environmental complications. Coal, for instance is “the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Coal combustion not only produces sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain and snow, it generates millions of tons of particulates that cause asthma and other respiratory diseases.” As with all usage of fossil fuels, it creates enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which contributes to greenhouse gas. Not only are fossil fuels dirty, they also pose as a security risk and unforgiving on the American wallet. (Saini)