Alternative Energy Argument Essay

The U.S obtains more than 84% of its energy from fossil fuels including oil, coal and natural gas. This is because people rely on it to heat their homes, power industries, run vehicles, manufacturing, and provision of electricity. It is apparent that the country’s transportation industry highly depends on conventional petroleum oil, which is responsible for global warming, thus threatening economic opulence and national security. Apart from that, increasing consumption of fossil fuels have elevated health problems in the state, destroyed wild places, and polluted the environment. After conducting Environmental Impact Assessment, projections showed that the world energy consumption would increase by more than 56% between 2010 and 2040. However, fossil fuels will cater for more than 80% of the total energy used in 2040. Sadly, it will be a trajectory to alter the world’s climate, as well as, weaken the global security environment. Importantly, the rate at which the US relies on fossil fuels needs to reduce since it has adverse effects on the planet’s supplies. The society needs to realize that fossil fuels are nonrenewable, thus taking millions of years to form (Huebner, 2003). Notably, the country can reduce dependency on fossil fuels by practicing energy conservation and efficiency,

The United States is the second largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, and yet is doing very little to fix this startling statistic (Dennis). The US’ reliance upon outdated energy sources continues to harm both the environment and the economy by producing millions of tonnes of pollution every year and costing the government billions of dollars (“Fact Sheet: Clean Power Plan”). Fossil fuels have been the main energy sources in America since the industrial revolution, and it is time to make a change. Renewable energy is energy harnessed from sources like the sun, wind, or water, and has little to no negative effects on the environment (“Renewable Energy Technology Basics”). The United States needs to integrate and increase the use of these types of energy across the country, as well as implement positive environmental policies, to prevent further pollution of the earth and combat the effects of climate change.

This year we have seen more electric and hybrid vehicle startups than ever before.” (Morrison) Nearly everyone recognizes the benefits of the shift, both in terms of how it would help our environment in the long term, but also the economic impact it would have, (reduced gas costs, lower electric and other utilities bills... etc.) But still, many large companies work to impede the progress in favor of maintaining our dependence on fossil fuels. The American Petroleum institute has worked with many oil industry protection companies to stymie the renewable energy movement, even in some cases, “posing as environmentalist groups in order to attract the support of environmentalists while simultaneously pushing their anti-renewable agenda.” (Blankenhorn) Many of these companies striving against renewable energy also support the building of the Keystone pipeline, using the justification that the building of the pipeline would lower gas prices. But what they fail to acknowledge is the basic economic fallacy of this, “Fossil energy prices are not going to fall. The more you remove carbon-based resources from the ground, the more it costs to get more.”

Renewable energy’s increasingly greater power output has “made wind and solar more competitive with fossil fuels in many regions” (Warrick). In fact, renewable energy has improved so much, both financially and technologically, that many “developing economies will ultimately choose renewables over cheap coal”, enabling them to “skip over a generation of technology” (Warrick). Hydropower, geothermal energy, solar energy, and wind energy will only keep improving in power output until they inevitably become the best choice for electricity. Now that private tech companies have begun to back renewables, their technology is increasing at an extraordinary pace. With more prominent business leaders supporting renewables, the public is more inclined to accept them. People like Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (and many other companies), fund and promote clean energy projects to raise popular support and develop new renewable technologies. Some people argue, however that renewable energy will never produce enough energy to power the entire United States. After all, “by 2016, wind energy accounted for just over 6.7 percent of U.S. electricity production” and solar energy sits at just “0.6 percent” (Renewable). While this number seems extremely low, it has been increasing rapidly. In 2012, “solar energy accounted for only 0.2 percent of the electricity

The U.S. is using non-renewable resources affecting the environment and the resource itself negatively. This is a problem because the fossil fuels are creating a tremendous amount of Carbon Dioxide and the Carbon Dioxide is polluting the air. This is bad for the environment because of the amount of pollution and because of the way you obtain fossil fuels. This resource is not renewable, this means that the resource will run out over time. In this day and age, the demand for this resource is increasing rapidly due to overpopulation and the demand for more cars. If we could come up with a renewable resource to replace fossil fuels, then we wouldn't have to rely on a non-renewable resource any longer. This is where hydropower comes in. hydropower should replace fossil fuels and the U.S. a better place.

The United States must re-examine many policies previously accepted as reasonable, especially its own national energy policy. As the largest overall and per capita energy consumer in the world, the U.S. needs to decide upon a reasonable source of energy for the foreseeable future, especially since its energy needs will increase dramatically during that time. With political instability likely to remain the norm in the Middle East, oil continues to be an energy source of questionable reliability; in addition, current estimates of worldwide reserves suggest we may in fact run out of oil entirely in the next fifty years. Natural gas reserves are in fairly short supply too, and costs limit its

These sources of energy have a great upside, but right now are incredibly inefficient compared with fossil fuels because of the lack of funding and worldly push (2009). If there isn’t a bigger investment in these alternative energies, fossil fuels are going to maintain their stranglehold on all the economies of the world (Lomborg, 2009).

In “Alternative Energy Should Not Be Pursued” the author argues that alternative energy sources are in fact more costly and less efficient than traditional energy sources. Environmentalists and advocates of renewable energy propose that the world can be powered without producing harmful greenhouse gases via renewable resources; but the author argues, with the help of experts Peter Van Doren and Jeremy Taylor, that the higher costs would override any benefits. The United States government has bolstered the renewable energy industry since the 1970s with incentives and subsidies despite there being little to no economic benefit to promoting such types of energy production. The author also seeks to show that this is not a battle between “Big Oil” and an “infant industry,” but this alleged

In contrast, some believe that renewable energy is a key factor involved in helping the economy to grow. Many jobs are created in the manufacturing and running of renewable energy plants. The renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies created 8.5 million new jobs and $970 billion in revenue in the year 2006 (Langwith, “Renewable Energy is Economically”). The American Solar Energy Society says by 2030 it could generate up to $4.5 trillion in revenue for the U.S and create 40 million new jobs. This would represent one in every four jobs (Langwith, “Renewable Energy is Economically”). This shows how vital it is to get renewable energy companies in the U.S. It is important to build a stable economy again and do it all while helping the environment.

In the United States, a topic for debate is the energy crisis. The issue is that the United States’ current, most widely used energy sources, fossil fuels, is harmful to the environment. So as to not harm the environment, many people have made the switch to solar or wind energy, thinking that as long as they don’t use fossil fuels they are doing the environment a favor. However, no matter the energy source for use on a large scale, it is going to have its own unique issues.  There are a number of energy alternatives within the United States. The two sides to the argument are renewables, such as wind and solar energy (the two most popular) versus fossil fuels, such as

The 20th century witnessed the discovery of substantial petroleum reserves in America, with domestic production peaking in the 1970s (Campbell, 2002), which serves as the primary fuel in the country. Since then, there has been a steady decline in production. However, recent economic growth has resulted in increased demand, making the United States one of the largest consumers of fuel in the world. Other fuels such as gas and coal, despite their significant domestic supplies, are also facing increased danger of exhaustion (E.W.G, 2007), necessitating the need for America to start weaning itself off these fossil fuels. In addition to these, the impact of these fuels on the environment and the atmosphere also necessitate the country to reconsider its energy sources. If we are able to decrease domestic use of fossil fuels, increase the amount of public transportation and deliver more innovation in alternative energy we could significantly decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

In this day and age, we have new energy sources that could be used to power our homes and transportation. Wind and solar power are used all over the world, but are still used far less than fossil fuels. Most would say it’s not reliable or it doesn’t make any profit. While both statements are true, it doesn’t mean we can’t make a better future using renewable energy. In fact, the only reason we don’t use renewables for everything is that we don’t want to change. The hard truth is we need to change. Fossil fuels are great right now, but if we run out, humanity must have another source of energy.

Since, fossil fuels have been a part of our environment for some time now, they have been the main resource we’ve needed and used to keep our country running. The truth of the matter is, since we obtain fossil fuels from plants and animals that lived millions of years ago they will soon be gone. As indicated by Eric McLamb, founder, chief executive officer, and president of the ecology communications group, “The problem is fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They are limited in supply and will one day be depleted.” People realize that the crisis of running out of fossil fuels is upon us; however, these same people are timid about moving on to renewable energy. One main reason is because individuals do not believe renewable energy is cost efficient. For instance, solar energy is known to be fairly expensive, particularly more expensive than the conventional energy used now, which makes people uncertain about changing to renewable energy.

These fossil fuels serve to be very beneficial for our use and need for energy. The accessibility of these energy sources are relatively abundant in our environment. These sources of energy, specifically crude oil for example, are found in abundance underground in certain areas. For example, while there is not huge oil sources underground everywhere, there are large rigs in certain areas of the world that supply an astronomical amount of crude oil for our use. Places such as Saudi Arabia and Canada have been the 2 largest providers of non-renewable oil for the US. Similarly, there are many places in the US that non-renewable resources like oil and coal have been tapped into. These oil rigs and coal mines are being used at a rate that some worry is not sustainable, or responsible. The oil rigs, in particular, produce a real economic boom as well as the benefit to fulfill our energy needs. For example, back when gasoline was 4 dollars a gallon, it

For years man has relied on energy in order to be successful in life. The industrial revolution relied on coal for the new inventions brought into the world. Life as has never been the same since then. However since that time, there has been little done to improve on energy efficiency and humans still primarily rely on fossil fuels for energy. For over a hundred years the Earth has become more polluted and dirtier than ever before. Now, with new, innovative technology there is an opportunity to change that and to rely on renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The main source of energy for the world should be alternative energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.