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Comparing fossil fuels and renewable energy essay
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The world's fossil fuels are running out. With the average amount of time it takes for coal to form being 300 billion years, the earth can only renew them so fast. Fossil fuels, like coal and oil take the earth billions of years to reproduce so an effective alternate energy source must be explored. Fossil fuels or crude oil has been around for a long time and can be refined to form a number of products such as gas, gasoline, kerosene, gas oil or diesel. We are also running out of oil which is also a non-renewable resource. According to ecotricity.co.uk, if we continue to consume fossil fuels like this, they will run out by approximately 2088. The use of fossil fuels is also dangerous to the environment. Burning coal and oil produces smog and greenhouse gasses but despite the environmental risks and the fact that they are going to run out, we humans continue to use them. Why? You might ask. The simple answer is because they are cheap easy to get and effective. The harsh reality is that no alternative fuel can match the efficiency of coal and oil. In this paper we will compare the efficiency of renewable resources to the efficiency of oil and coal.
Fossil fuels have been humans best friend for a while. I guess you could call it a worldwide addiction. We have been told that they hurt the environment. The effects of using fossil fuels are now becoming more evident. One very obvious effect is the melting ice caps. As evident as they are, people are still finding it hard to leave fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are cheap, easy to obtain and efficient. The truth of the matter is, no renewable energy can match the efficiency of fossil fuels.
Alternative fuel is any other way of producing power or electricity without using fossil fuels. Some...
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...he slow but visible effects it has on the environment. No renewable energy source has matched the efficiency of coal and that is precisely why people prefer the ease of just flicking on the light switch without even understanding where it came from. In order to make the switch we will need to look at everything in the long term. It might be costly at first, but making the switch will be cheap in the long run. Nuclear energy for one has proven to have a promising future. Nuclear power today provides us with cheap electricity. It also helps expand the making of drugs and the equipment in the medical field. Now imagine if we had more plants. Approximately 10,000 plants would be needed to replace all the fossil plants. Perhaps instead of trying to replace fossil fuels with one alternative, we could use all of them. That way we would need a little power from each source.
Alternative energy is the world’s race as of now. As the space race concluded and the nuclear arms race died down, alternative energy became the race of the ages. In today’s society, with today’s technology there are all sorts of forms of alternative energies. These energies include hydro power, geothermal, biomass, nuclear power, and so much more. With all of these variations of alternative energy the question now becomes, which form is the best to use? Are any of them safe? Which ones would effectively solve the world’s depleting energy crisis? Of course, the country that is able to produce clean efficient energy; that country would become the new world power virtually overnight. With today’s technology, should we resort to food/corn as our primary source of energy?
What Nuclear power has the ability to do is get a lot of power in a little amount of space. “Roughly 1.6 billion people live without access to electricity, and 2.4 billion rely on traditional biomass because they have no access to modern fuel.” (General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei) With nuclear power put into these countries that are without power we can have it to where electricity will be accessibility to everyone. By having power accessible to everyone we can accomplish so much more and unlock more possibilities in our world today.
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.
Alternative energy does not focus on the burning of fuel, nor the nuclear process. Alternative energy is basically an alternative to fossil fuel. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, or even natural gas. One day coal and oil will eventually run out, and the cost of these are getting more and more expensive by the day. We can reuse alternative energy, but no matter what energy sources we use, there will always be pros and cons.
In chapter thirteen of our book, Environment by Raven and Berg, it shows us just how important renewable energy sources are. Currently the United States of America thrives on the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. The main problems with these types of fuel are that they are both limited and can be extremely harmful to our environment. They cause global warming, air pollution, acid rain, and oil spills (Environment), and not only that, but in the grand scheme of things, these sources really aren’t even that cheap of a fuel source. There are many alternatives to these all but outdated fuel sources.
There are many other advantages to my humble proposal, such as having fewer issues to worry about and having the knowledge that we humans can harness Nature. As you all know, knowledge is power.
However, with a scarcity of coal, more power would be generated from other sources like nuclear, solar and hydro. However, producing electricity from these sources for huge supply would be difficult.
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.
Fossil fuels are an unreliable and unsafe source for worldwide energy. Our common fuels will run out as in: Ethanol, Petroleum, and Oil. Honestly we need those fuels for life, to drive cars, four wheelers, lawn mowers, and tractors, etc. If we did not have those things anymore our ways of living will drastically decrease. People in our society are so use to driving vehicles that if that gets taken away World War III would start. We use lawn mowers to cut our grass, to keep our land in shape and pretty. We also use tractors for multiple things not only to keep big pastures in shape, but also to use for logging. People do logging for a living. Without tractors their job would be very intense.(conserve-energy-future.com)
The effects of using fossil fuels are starker than their timelines. Humans release approximately two billion metric tons of pollution annually, mostly from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas; this pollution is destroying our environment and the ozone layer. Ozone and smog damage forests, crops, and other plant life, and reduces visibility. Other pollutants have the same
Burning and mining coal for fuel is harmful to the environment but because how cheap and easy it is to find many people are unwilling to give it up as a fuel source. One of the problems with coal is that they are limited and are non-renewable so once it has been used we won’t be able to use it again.
In contrast, most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions (“Benefits of Renewable Energy Use”). Coal mining and lumber harvesting would also be reduced by the switch, which in turn would improve the forest and ecosystem surrounding these power plants. Animals will also benefit from the change to clean energy. It is often reported that animals are constantly displaced and injured by the different forms of energy we are currently using. Andrew B. Gill performed a study and wrote a journal article on the conservation of wildlife and their habitats; the results of his study were conclusive that something needs to be done to change the current state of our energy resources.
Fossil fuels are an important part of life. When you turn on the lights, watch TV, or take a shower, the electricity that you are using is being generated by fossil fuels. The three types of fossil fuels are coal, crude oil, and natural gas. They all take millions of years to form, so they are considered to be “non-renewable”- eventually, the fossil fuels will all be used up. One dangerous biological effect of using fossil fuels is ocean acidification. Extracting and transporting fossil fuels can also be very dangerous. Environmentally damaging accidents such as groundwater contamination, land subsidence, and oil spills occur frequently. Global warming is another possible environmental effect. Fossil fuels have a crucial role in modern society, but since they are non-renewable and dangerous, we should reduce our dependence on them and explore alternative energy sources. Wind energy, hydroelectricity, and solar energy are some examples of renewable fuel sources. There are also many things that people can do everyday to save energy (and, in turn, conserve fossil fuels).
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)