Introduction
America is built on available energy
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure
Dwight D. Eisenhower
US general & Republican politician (1890 - 1969)
When President Eisenhower uttered those words, I don't imagine he would have envisioned the critical role which energy plays in 21st Century America. Everywhere we look, energy is being transformed and consumed. Our cars need it. Our emails to family use it. The strawberries we eat in Wisconsin arrived here, courtesy of the energy used in the transportation systems.
America has always thrived on abundant energy.
Early American Energy Sources
Many of the pre-revolutionary portraits show famous people standing by a fireplace. Wood was the plentiful energy source in pre-revolutionary years in America. Trees were available free for the taking in the early years of our country.
In the 1600's, 1700's and 1800's, wood was by far the dominant energy source, but coal growing in use.
But, as scientists dug deeper into the sources of energy and matter, in 1776 Cavendish discovered Hydrogen. His experiments isolated this most fundamental of elements, setting the stage for expanded use of Hydrogen in the 21st Century.
1900's Energy Sources
In the first half of the century, coal becomes the dominant energy source in America. During the 1900's, when population increased nearly 4 times, energy usage increased 10 times . Petroleum energy usage grew dramatically and became the dominant energy source by the end of the century. By the end of the century, energy usage in America quadrupled compared to the 1800's. Partly this was due to the increased population in America, but mostly this was due to the need for societal changes brought on by World Wars I and II.
2000's Energy Sources
In this early portion of the 21st century, petroleum energy remains the dominant energy source. And, due to the changing nature of our industries, natural gas has become much more common as an energy source than coal or wood. But a growing energy resource is Hydrogen.
What is hydrogen?
The name Hydrogen comes from the Greek language: Hydro: water, genes: forming . As we noted earlier, Henry Cavendish is given credit for isolating pure Hydrogen and defining some of its key properties. Some of those properties include that it is:
Colorless
Ordorless
Non-metalic
Univalent
Highly flammable
Diatomic gas.
It is the most abundant element in the universe.
...m fossil fuels, there remains alternative resources that can easily be taken advantage of. So why isn’t the United States taking this deeply into consideration and improving this dilemma? The energy crisis of the 1970’s continues on into the present as Americans search for new ways to fuel the consumption. This remains unresolved.
...e has become misleading, for it is used oil to justify subsidies for pork-barrel projects or mere sops to the industry, such as drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness. Given that America consumes a quarter of the world's oil but has barely three percent of its proven reserves, it will never be energy-independent until the day it stops using oil altogether.
The reliance on other countries for fossil fuels that produce energy have put the United States of America at risk of being pulled into unstable regions around the world jeopardizing international relationships and putting its own citizens in harm’s way. America needs to balance both the pursuit of alternative energy solutions and reduce energy usage. Our military runs on fossil fuels produced by other nations who do not have similar interests or values as the United States, ultimately adding unwanted risk that becomes difficult to manage. There are advantages to alternative energy solutions that could allow for America to become an independent energy nation that would eliminate the need to support and stabilize various regions around the world. The U.S. Military needs to reduce its overall energy usage by taking advantage of breakthrough technologies that could be integrated onto current systems.
Coal is by far the most abundant of fossil fuels, and will be available for much longer than oil. Having been harvested and burned since the 13th century, a massive infrastructure has been formed to quickly and efficiently mine, deliver, and burn coal. Coal is also the cheapest of fossil fuels (The Futurist, 1997)
The major sources of energy in the US from highest percentage to lowest percentage are oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear fuels, renewable energy
Coal was the cutting edge of energy generation before any other source was extensively used. Wood, wind, water, and muscle power provided nearly all of the energy before the widespread adoption of coal. The greater energy density of coal provides a greater efficiency than these other methods of generating power; combine that greater efficiency with its ease of transportation and coal easily becomes the fuel of a nation. In its early days, coal was mined and consumed in England, a country short on wood and usable water power. This shortage in other areas left a gap that the relatively cheap coal could fill. Coal allowed for industry and manufacturing to grow and produce profits greater than almost any other industry. Coal gained its popularity mainly because it had an economic value in that it provided energy in quantities and in locations that were unobtainable and unreachable for the other energy sources at the time. This start in England led to momentum in ta...
Advancements in new technology clearly promoted the industrial growth of the United States. The new technologies allowed business owners to reduce labor in the movement of materials from one point to the other. This occurred by using the new technology of railroads and machinery. Business owners used the railroads to transport their finished product and raw materials around the country more efficiently, which enabled businesses to expand. The business owners were now able to use machines for lifting materials from one floor to another and to use conveyer belts to move materials around on an assembly line. The use of machines is evident because the graph in document 5 clearly shows that American industrial and agricultural power sources between 1850 and 1900 changed. This is evident because in 1850, only 13% human power and 35% water and coal power was used, but in 1900 a mere 5% human power and a whopping 73% water and coal power was used. The use of machines more than doubled over the course from 1850-1900, and the human output de...
Shafer, Leah R. "Address on the Energy Crisis (15 July 1979)." Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 9. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. 492-94. U.S. History in Context. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
The use of fossil fuels on a large scale, specifically coal, began with the Industrial Revolution in England. Industries/corporations first used coal as a main source of energy to fuel their factories, and it became even more popular when railroads started. According to the United States Energy Department, "...by the early 20th century coal had become the major fuel in the United States, accounting for nearly 75% of the nation's energy requirements." Soon after, newer and cheaper fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, were high in demand. Energy Supplies, Sustainability, and Costs, by Sandra Alters, states oil was used as the main source of fuel to heat homes and offices, and gas powered the growing number of cars (57). "Oil shoved aside coal as the world's primary fuel, just as coal had replaced wood", says Tom Mast in Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage (15). Most Americans were not concerned wit...
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.
Historians have named the period between 1750 and 1914, as the era of a modern revolution and it is those revolutions that were witnessed during that period that have continued to shape today’s world. The modern revolution was made up of several developments that interacted with one another to yield better living conditions amongst human beings. Until the 19th century, the main source of energy used was biomass, combustion of heat to obtain heat and use of either animal or human muscle power. However, with the Big Era Seven, coal and steam power were adopted as the major sources of energy. By the early periods of the 19th century, steam power had enabled human beings to increase the amount of energy produced from burning coal and this yielded increased amount of energy that could now be used for purposes of industrialization. By 1914, fossil fuel was in use as well as natural gas.
Henry Cavendish was born October 10, 1731 in Nice, France. His mother, Lady Anne Grey was the daughter of the first Duke of Kent while his father Lord Charles Cavendish, was second Duke of Devonshire. His ancestry links back to many of the aristocratic families in Great Britain. The chemist/physicist is most accredited for the discovery of hydrogen, the “inflammable air” and measuring the Earth’s density, but he also researched and discovered many other important scientific revolutions.
Sigfusson, Thorsteinn I. "Pathways to Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier." Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 365.1853 (2007): 1025-42. Web.
Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on the earth. It can be found in the oceans as well as the atmosphere. Over the last few years, talk about the future of hydrogen power has grown from a whisper to a roar. The use of hydrogen is not just the burning of the gas, but of its use in a fuel cell. Fuel cells might be the device that causes the extinction of the internal combustion engine. A fuel cell is a device that produces electricity from a fuel and an oxidizer, a substance that combines with the fuel. The fuel and oxidizer react chemically at two separate electrodes to produce the direct electric current; These cells use hydrogen as the fuel and oxygen as the oxidizer. Hydrogen power could be the silver bullet to the current and future energy situation.
middle of paper ... ... g the Energy Revolution." Foreign Affairs. Nov/Dec 2010: 111. SIRS Issues Researcher.