Energy Alternatives Everyday 85.8% of Americans drive to work, (McKenzie) whether it be carpooling or driving alone. Everybody knows that coal and gas won't last forever, but what will we use when they run out? The answer is all around us, it could be wind power, nuclear power, or even new biofuels. Whatever we decide on using, we are going to need to choose it quickly. In the USA coal and natural gas produce 70% of our energy. “During the 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced a new U.S. energy target: produce 80 percent of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035” (Kenward). As of 2011, 20% of electricity comes from nuclear and the other 10% from Renewable sources, like wind and hydropower. Wind is created when …show more content…
To get to the 80% energy quota, the US would need to build 64 nuclear power plants the size of New York’s Indian Point. Since the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, people have become more wary of the dangers of harnessing nuclear power. Since Chernobyl had a meltdown in 1986 there have been 57 nuclear meltdowns (The Guardian). Two thirds of these disasters have happened in the US, but there have been very few casualties in comparison. Nuclear power is generated by splitting atoms. Modern nuclear power plants use the immense amounts of heat to evaporate water and the steam turns a turbine to turn a generator. Fission is when you split an atom of Uranium or Plutonium into two smaller atoms called fission products. To split atoms, you have to hit it with a neutron, many neutrons are released in order to split as many atoms as possible to generate as much energy as possible. Most, if not all nuclear power plants use fission to generate the heat. The other method to harness nuclear power is Fusion. Fusion is the combining of two small atoms such as Hydrogen or Helium to produce heavier atoms and energy (What Is Nuclear). These can produce more energy than fission and not produce as many radioactive byproducts. Tons of these Fusion reactions occur in the sun using hydrogen as fuel and producing helium as a byproduct. Nuclear waste is recyclable, but most of the time only 1% of the Uranium is used, but the rest is thrown away as …show more content…
“Currently, 98 percent of the U.S. transport sector runs on petroleum. The reasons for this dominance are simple” (Kopp). These engines are simple, light, and use gas, which is relatively lightweight and extremely powerful. Biofuels seem to be a sound alternative to petroleum in cars. These biofuels are ethanol, made from corn, sugar, and fibrous plants. Often, 10% ethanol is blended with gasoline to make e10. E10 is normally used as a substitute for MTBE. MTBE is Methyl tert-butyl ether is an organic compound with a structural formula (CH₃)₃COCH₃. MTBE is a volatile, flammable, and colorless liquid that is sparingly soluble in water (Kopp). General Motors are making cars that with small modifications can run on e85 (85% ethanol) or even e100 (100% ethanol). GM is estimating that more than 2 million of these vehicles are on the road today. A government subsidy says it can produce a gallon of ethanol for the price of $0.51 in the market, whereas gasoline is at a cost of about $3-$4 a gallon in the US. The problem is that the ethanol that is produced is mostly used in e10, so no one know exactly how much the e100 would potentially cost. If e85 were to become popularly bought, the US would have to massively increase our production of ethanol which could raise prices. Not to mention the fact that ethanol only has about 70% of the energy that gasoline has. This means less miles per gallon for the consumers and a
Nonetheless, many analysts agree that NAFTA has made a mark. U.S.-Mexico trade continues to grow, and NAFTA and the promises it brings have lessened the impact of the Mexican recession and quickened its recovery. Healthy, growing bilateral trade, they say, depends on healthy, growing economies, and Mexico’s recovery and continuing economic liberalization should fuel that trend.
Switching from the expensive oil to alternative fuels has moved from a dream to reality. Today, there are dozens of alternatives to oil that are currently available us to be used. One alternative to oil that is being used more today is ethanol. Derived from plant materials, ethanol can be a cheaper, cleaner alternative to the gasoline that our vehicles run off. When going to gas pumps, one will notice that much of the gasoline is up to 10 percent of ethanol. According to our text, most ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn, yet ethanol can be made from any biomes-- including garbage. (Turk & Bensel, 2011)
Campus security at Louisiana State University of Alexandria is not as good as it should be. LSUA, like most college campuses, is a campus where almost anyone from anywhere can step foot on campus without having to go through any security checks. Someone can easily walk on campus grounds and possibly harm students or faculty. This is a very important issue that LSUA faces daily along with many other colleges and universities around the country. LSUA’s campus police has around 6-7 officers, which isn’t enough to cover most of the campus. Every now and then I see a university police officer patrol the campus streets trying
For my interview, I chose to interview my mom, Ilsa Wells, who had been born and lived in Colombia for 23 years before moving to the United States. Her family in Colombia was able to get by and provide for their fairly large family, albeit barely and with a lot of people having to work to make ends meet. She got her education there and when she was 23 she decided to move here in search of job opportunities and a better life.
The development of science and technology has led to people considering using alternative fuels to generate electricity. There are many alternative fuels that can generate electricity, such as natural gas, nuclear energy, wind energy, hydraulic power and so on (Fossil Fuels Used to Generate Electricity Power Plant Emissions of North America). According to the statistics by the U.S. Energy Information Administration in 2009, the usage of coal was still the largest source to generate the power. Sources of electricity in the United States were generated by 44.9% of coal, 20.3% of nuclear, 23.4% of natural gas, 1% of petroleum, 6.9% of hydroelectric conventional and 3.6% of others (Electric Power Monthly with Data for February 2014). Coal
This class is an elective for me, so I didn’t really know much about energy technologies before taking it and I must say my opinions on different sources of energies have changed completely. For the whole semester now I’ve been trying to think about what I wanted to write about for my final paper, but nothing really tickled my fancy until watching the film “Pump”. This film has opened my eyes to different sources of fuel we could use in vehicles, but really one particular one stood out to me the most and that was ethanol. The reason this particular one stood out to me the most was the fact that Brazil, an entire country, has switched over to ethanol gas.
According to statistical data “Almost all (95%) of the world's transportation energy comes from petroleum-based fuels, largely gasoline and diesel.” (United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.).
The Industrial Revolution sparked a need for large sources of energy. Human and animal labor could not provide the power necessary to power industrial machinery, railroads, and ships. The steam engine and later the internal combustion engine provided the bulk of the energy required by the industrial age. Today most nations are still heavily reliant on energy that comes from combustion. Usually coal, petrolium, and natural gas are used. Some hydroelectric, wind power, and nuclear fission sources are used, but in the US they accounted for less than 20% of the total energy consumption in 1997 (1). Many experts are worried that natural resources such as coal and petrolium are being depleted faster than they are being replenished, which could
“According to the Renewable Fuels Association, ethanol production in 2013 added more than 87,000 direct jobs across the country, $44 billion to the gross domestic product, and $30.7 billion in household income” ("Ethanol Benefits and Considerations"). A nonrenewable resource, gasoline, currently occupies the United States’s spot as the main fuel source. This not only means our fuel supply will eventually be depleted, but the country’s main fuel supply is harming the environment. Throughout the last decade, the idea of ethanol, a renewable resource, starting to replace gasoline has been debated, but until the last few years, remained implausible. Recent technology innovations, enhancing the performance of ethanol fuel, transformed this idea into a reality. The adoption of ethanol as the main source of our country’s fuel not only benefits the country as a whole but individuals’ vehicles .
Figure above shows the percentage of electric energy in the U.S. Over 50% of the energy is from coal. This year nuclear energy use was increasing; however, it creates radioactive. Natural gas will pollute the air and caused global warming. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wind is the fastest growing energy resource. It increased by 46.6 percent by 2005.
Around 86 percent of our power is produced from these fills sorts, with 73 percent from coal and 13 percent from natural gas. Around the globe it's much the same, with fossil fuels being utilised for power, warming and fuelling vehicles. (Originenergy.com.au)
The world around us mostly runs on fossil fuels in order to produce electricity; however, there will be a period that comes where we will run out of those fossil fuels. We only have so much time before a crisis hits and we have nothing left to produce the energy we need. In order for our country to produce the energy and electricity we need, we must do something about it. As a country, we must figure out how we can make the switch to using more renewable energy before it is too late and we run out of fossil fuels.
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.
The use of ethanol as an alternative fuel for gasoline has attracted considerable interest, mostly in the US (corn-based ethanol), Brazil (sugar cane-based ethanol); and Sweden as E85 (15% gasoline-85% ethanol) has been commercially used for a couple of decades [129]. Ethanol is also used as a drop–in fuel up to 10% in gasoline (E10) in a number of markets such as Austral-ia [96]. There are a number of advantages of blending ethanol in gasoline: (1)
Of these two types of energy production, fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal make up about ninety percent of the world’s energy usage. Nuclear power takes up five percent of this equation, with the remaining renewable energy resources splitting