Alternative Energy – Why Do We Need It?
So why do We Need Alternatives?
To reply to that question, we have to begin by discussing fossil fuels-what they are, where they are available from, that they are used and also the advantages and disadvantages of every. In this context, the pressing need for alternatives becomes very clear.
What exactly are fossil fuels?
Most non-renewable fuels are formed in the remains of long-dead creatures and plants. Buried during the period of vast sums of years, these carbon-based deposits happen to be converted by heat and pressure with time into such combustible substances as crude oil, coal, natural gas, oil shales and tar sands. An inferior part of non-renewable fuels is the number of other natural substances that contain carbon but do not come from organic sources.
To create more non-renewable fuels would require both the creation of new topsoil full of hydrocarbons, and time-lots of time. Given estimates of current fossil fuel reserves worldwide, it isn’t possible we can wait the problem, and continue our reliance on fossil fuels until new reserves are built. At current consumption rates, the reserves of oil and coal along with other non-renewable fuels won’t last centuries, not to mention vast sums of years.
As for making more, experts have pointed out that it can take near to five centuries to change a single inch of topsoil as plants decay and rocks weather. Yet in the usa, a minimum of, a lot of the topsoil has been disturbed by farming, leading still more experts towards the disturbing conclusion that in areas once included in prairie, the past century of agriculture have caused America’s “bread basket’ to lose 1 / 2 of its topsoil since it erodes thirty times faster than it may form.
The Advantages of Non-renewable fuels in Energy Production
Many reasons exist why the planet became determined by non-renewable fuels, and continues to use them. For instance, it’s to date been relatively cost-effective in the short term to burn non-renewable fuels to generate electricity at strategic centralized areas of the grid and to deliver the electricity in large quantities to nearby substations; these in turn deliver electricity directly to consumers. These big power plants burn gas or, less efficiently, coal. Since so much electricity can be lost over long-distance transmission, when power must be concentrated more in one region than another, the fuels are generally transported instead to distant power plants and burned there. Liquid fuels are particularly simple to transport.
So far, non-renewable fuels happen to be abundant and easily procured. Petroleum reserves worldwide are estimated at approximately 1 and 3.5 trillion barrels. Proven coal reserves at the end of 2005, as estimated by British, were 909,064 million tons worldwide. Coal, furthermore, is relatively cheap.
Perhaps the simplest reason why the world is constantly on the rely on non-renewable fuels is the fact that to do other things requires change: physical, economical, and-perhaps probably the most difficult-psychological. The basic technology for extracting and burning fossil fuels has already been in place, with the big power plants but at the consumer level, too. Retrofitting factories will be cost-prohibitive, but maybe even more daunting will be replacing heating systems in most home, factory and building. Ultimately, however, the real resistance might be our nature. We humans often resist change in general, especially those changes that require us to stop longstanding traditions, alter our methods for thinking and living, and learn new information and practices after generations to be assured that everything was “fine” using the old ways.
Why Do We Need Alternatives?
If there are so many reasons to use non-renewable fuels, why even consider alternatives? Those who have paid at all of attention to the issue in the last many years could probably answer that question. If little else, most people could develop the first and most apparent reason: non-renewable fuels are not, for all practical purposes, renewable. At current rates, the planet uses fossil fuels 100,000 times faster than they are able to form. The demand for them will far outstrip their availability within centuries-or less.
And although technology has made extracting non-renewable fuels easier and more cost effective in some instances than ever before, such isn’t always the case. As we deplete the more readily available oil reserves, a new one must be found and tapped into. What this means is locating oil rigs much farther offshore or in less accessible regions; burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth to reach coal seams or scraping off ever more layers of precious topsoil; and entering into uncertain agreements with countries and cartels with whom it may not be in good political interests to forge such commitments.
Finally, you will find human and environmental costs active in the reliance on fossil fuels. Drilling for oil, tunneling into coalmines, transporting volatile liquids and explosive gases-all it may and also have led to tragic accidents inducing the destruction of acres of ocean, shoreline and land, killing humans as well as wildlife and plant life. Even if properly extracted and handled, fossil fuels have a toll about the atmosphere, since the combustion processes release many pollutants, including sulfur dioxide-a major component in acid rain. When another common emission, co2, is released into the atmosphere, it plays a role in the “greenhouse effect,” in which the atmosphere captures and reflects back the energy radiating in the earth’s surface instead of allowing it to escape back into space. Scientists agree that this has resulted in climatic change, an incremental increase in average temperatures beyond those that could be predicted from patterns of history. This affects everything from weather patterns towards the stability of the polar ice caps.
Conclusion
Clearly, something must change. Just like many complex problems, however, the reply to supplying the earth’s ever-growing hunger for more energy will not be as simple as abandoning all the old methods and beliefs and adopting new ones overnight. Partly this is a matter of practicality-the weaning process would take considerable investments of money, education and, most of all, time. The main reason, however, is the fact that there is no one perfect alternative energy source. Alternative will not mean substitute.
What needs to change?
It appears simplistic to express that what really needs to change is our attitude, but in fact the basis of a sound energy plan does get down to the inescapable fact that we must change our way of thinking concerning the issue. In the old paradigm, we sought ways to provide massive amounts of power and distribute it towards the clients, understanding that while much would be lost in the transmission, the advantages would be great too: power plants might be located away from residential areas, fuels could be sent to central locations, and for consumers, the most obvious bonus was convenience. Typically our only personal reference to the process would be calling the providers of heating fuel and electricity, and pulling up to the pumps in the service station. And also the only time we would think about the problem would be when prices rose noticeably, or the power went out.
You will find people who have tried to convince us that there is no problem, and that those tree-hugging Chicken Littles who discuss renewable and renewable power want us all to go back to nature. More often than not these skeptics’ motivations for perpetuating this myth falls into one of two categories: one, they fear the things they don’t understand and are resistance against being told how to proceed, or two, they’ve some political or financial stake in enabling our fossil-fuel addiction. (And sometimes both.)
The truth is that aside from altering our methods for thinking, there’ll not be one major change but a lot of smaller ones. A comprehensive and successful energy plan will necessarily include these things:
* Supplementing the power produced at existing power plants with renewable power means, and converting some of the people plants to operate on different “feedstock” (fuels)
* Shifting from complete reliance upon a few concentrated energy production facilities to adding many new and alternative sources, some feeding into the existing “grid” and some of supplying local as well as individual needs
* Providing practical, economical and convenient ways for consumers-residences, commercial users, everyone-to change and adopt new technologies to supply for some or all of their own energy needs
* Learning ways we are able to be more energy efficient now (“reduce, reuse, recycle”), using advances in technology as well as simple alterations in human behavior to lessen consumption without requiring individuals to make major compromises or sacrifices
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