Environmental Policy / Alternative Fuel
By: Alvis Yuen
There is evidence that greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels are causing changes in climate patterns throughout the world. The United States, as the foremost economy, must take decisive action to ensure that human activities do not exacerbate climate change caused by global warming. If no action is taken, there will be severe ecological, economical, sociological, and political consequences. To prevent environmental collapse, the United States needs to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy which addresses all aspects of the energy problem.
Fossil Fuel
Most electricity in the United States is generated by power plants burning fossil fuels: petroleum oil, coal, and natural gas. This causes several problems. Foremost, the process of burning fossil fuels inherently releases greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. Burning coal, and other "dirty" fuels, releases other chemicals besides carbon dioxide; they include sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. These chemicals retain incoming solar radiation and also cause acid rain. Acid rain damages infrastructure and destroys ecological balance.
Secondly, the U.S. is the largest importer of foreign oil in the world, supplied by countries who are increasingly protective of their oil stock and whose interests are not always aligned with the interests of the U.S. Thus, the American economy is at the whim of global energy prices, which is a severe strain on national finances as the United States is forced to spend as much as $1 billion a day buying oil, severely weakening the purchasing power of the dollar.
A third point is that the world has a finite supply of fossil fuels and it is increasingly difficult to find new supplies. If we continue to use the world's fossil fuels without regard for conservation, what if we run out of fossil fuels one day? What would future generations use as an energy source?
The United States current fossil fuel usage causes environmental, political, and economic problems. To solve those problems, developing alternative energy sources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is critical. The solution must be two-pronged: reducing our energy usage and developing renewable energy resources.
Conserving Energy
Recycling is an easy way to reduce energy usage. Making fresh steel from recycled products requires only 40% of the energy required from producing steel from raw materials, paper 60%, plastic 30%, glass only 5%! Although, many urban areas have implemented recycling programs, the rate of success varies. The primary obstacles to widespread adoption of recycling programs are the high cost of transportation and inconsistent demand. However, there have been increasingly innovative uses for recycled materials, such as old tires bits mixed with asphalt to increase road traction and glass bits in cement to increase sidewalk visibility at night.
Another way to reduce usage is to simply use more energy efficient products. For example, many older buildings use incandescent light bulbs, which are relatively inefficient (in terms of converting electricity into light). As a result, the Clean Energy Act effectively banned incandescent bulbs by January 2014, phased out by more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs and LEDs (light-emitting diodes). Some companies are also taking steps to reduce their environmental impact by decreasing packaging and offering their products in more concentrated forms to reduce transportation costs.
Heating and cooling buildings also requires tremendous amounts of energy. Window leakage and insufficient insulation increase energy costs for heating and cooling. To address this problem, $5 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been allotted for low-income home weatherization projects. Using the same concept, some commercial buildings have built gardens on their roofs, which reduce cooling costs. If all buildings were weatherized, the energy savings would be tremendous.
In urban areas, expanding and promoting the usage of public transportation networks is another source of energy conservation. This would decrease the amount of vehicles on the road, which would decrease traffic jams, reducing the amount of gas wasted in traffic jams. London has done this by adopting a congestion charge for vehicles which enter the city center.
Alternative Energy
The alternative energy sources with the greatest growth potential in the U.S. are wind power and solar power.
Wind power is using the force of wind, instead of steam, to drive wind turbines. The wind turbines generate electricity by passing a metal coil back and forth between two magnets. The electricity generated is part of the national grid. The electricity generated can used on-site to power hydrolysis, storing the energy as hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be used as a clean fuel. Wind power does not produce any waste. The biggest problem is a high initial cost and unreliability. Companies are sometimes reluctant to invest large sums into wind farms because wind farms cannot be turned on or off to meet demand. The grid cannot store excess electricity, although plans to use excess electricity to generate hydrogen have been considered. Some consumers also do not wish to pay the small increase in price to switch to wind power. In Colorado, California, New York, and Texas, residents can choose to buy all their electricity from wind or other renewable resources. Texas state legislature ordered utilities to construct 2,800 megawatts of renewable energy by 2009 as part of its electricity deregulation plan. In New York City, you can choose to buy all your electricity from wind turbines in upstate NY and PA. The switch to wind power costs an extra $ .025 per kilowatt-hour in addition to $.04 - $.07/ kilowatt-hour for regular electricity. This amounts to an average increase of $8.75 per month on the electric bill, accounting for 350 kwh usage per month.
Solar power is using the sun's radiation to generate electricity. This can be done by using the sun to heat water to drive a turbine to generate electricity. The largest solar power plant in the world, located in the Mojave Desert in California, utilized that principle. However, the quickest growing form of capturing solar energy is photovoltaic solar panels, which uses electron excitation to generate electricity. The biggest obstacle in using solar power is the initial cost of buying solar panels. With the extension of the 30% federal tax credit for residential and commercial adoption of solar panels, more Americans are choosing to install solar panels on their rooftops. Some areas even have programs where individual sell the surplus electricity generated by their home's solar panels back to the electric company.