Miriam Aburmaieleh
Professor Jason Keiber
Global Politics
28th October 2016
Environmental Issues: The United States and Uruguay
There are seven continents in the world made up of many powerful nations, big and small. These nations all have one thing in common, they struggle with the large consumption of our nonrenewable resources. Using these nonrenewable resources are harmful for the environment. Among these powerful nations is the United States. The United States is one of the biggest consumers of our nonrenewable resources. In this paper, I will provide an analysis of the United States’ consumption of resources. I will also compare the United States to Uruguay, a small yet more effective country when it comes to utilizing our renewable resources.
The United States is the largest consumer of nonrenewable resources in the world. In the United States the primary source of energy comes from 3 different resources. These resources are petroleum, natural gas and coal. The three of these resources make up over 90 percent of the energy consumption of nonrenewable resources in the United States. These nonrenewable resources are considered fossil fuels that are not costly when it comes to extracting them from the environment. Fossil fuels are a large contributor to the air pollution than any other resource.
Nonrenewable energy is energy that once used can not be replenished and used again. When burning fossil fuels this has proven to be bad for the environment. The resource coal is
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,
Energy is an important part of life producing the power of movement, heat, and production of electricity in many different ways. Therefore, choosing the correct source of energy is important for the environment and humans. Renewable energy that produces electricity never runs out, causing a lower environmental impact. Solar, Biomass, Wind, Geothermal, and Hydropower energy should be used globally to produce electricity. On the other hand, producing electricity from nonrenewable energy sources can be very harmful to humans and the environment. Humans can easily be dependent on it, which may not be the best option when it comes to finance, efficiency, sustainability and more. Approximately 52% of the US electricity comes from polluting sources like natural gas, oil, nuclear, and hydropower that have a lot of disadvantages effecting the environment in a negative way.
The United States of America is at the top of the list when it comes to the countries that use the most resources. In The Waste Generation by Bill Bryson, he talks about the amount of natural resources wasted by Americans. Bryson gets much of the information he uses in his essay from his personal experience. He lived in England for 20 years as a journalist and during his stay, he noticed many differences between the lifestyle of people living in England and the people in America. Most of the people that live in the U.S. are very wasteful compared to people living in other countries and even though some of the people realize that they are being wasteful themselves, they don’t change their habits. This is a very big problem in the U.S. because many resources are wasted such as electricity, water, gas, oil, and more. Compared to other countries, each person in the U.S. uses resources several times more than people in other countries depending on which country but some people may argue that the U.S. is covering up for wasting resources by making more resources, which is fine except for the fact that resources are still being wasted.
America 's use of nonrenewable resources has also had a negative affect on the country 's economy. The United State 's use of fossil fuels has made it dependent on other countries, allowed it to continue an outdated,
The oil/energy industry is one of the largest industries in the United States. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), fossil fuels (including co4tral,
Nonrenewable energy sources are sources, such as fossil fuels like coal, which are extracted from the earth and cannot be replenished quickly. Renewable sources of energy are sources that there is a seemingly endless supply and/ or can easily be replenished, such sources are solar, wind and water to name a few. Commercial electric generation came about in the late 19th century and was
There are about three universally used fuel sources for energy around the world which are: coal, oil, and natural gas. There has been a global increase in energy consumption throughout the world. Energy consumption is a topic that will impact the world. Greenhouse gasses are gasses that trap heat in the atmosphere, in turn, releasing carbon dioxide. This essay will discuss the common fuel sources, emissions, and total energy consumption by the United States and Brazil.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (2015) reports that the United States consumed approximately 19.4 million barrels of petroleum products daily, which calculated to an overall total of 7.08 billion barrels by the end of 2015 (para. 2). The United States population consumes a huge quantity of oil alone, in addition to all of the other fossil fuels that it also greatly depends on. Fossil fuels are a natural resource that is in limited supply, and they provide an efficient and consistent supply of power to communities all over the planet. Many people are pleased with the short-term advantages these
The United States clearly consumes more energy than needed, but it is not all due to wastefulness and apathy. For example, if one were to compare the US with the European Union, he/she would see that the US consumes about twice as much energy. However, such an observer must take into account other factors, such as population density. The US as a whole is four times less dense in population than the EU, and therefore needs more energy for basic tasks such as commuting. In addition, the US has greater climate extremes than the nations in the EU and therefore consumes more energy for heating and air conditioning. The same facts work when comparing the US to China or Japan (Lehrman 2). Nevertheless, there is a problem in the United States that must be addressed.
The term, “non-renewable energy,” is at its most basic form, means that the sources of energy will eventually one day run out and not replenish itself. Non-renewable energy comes in many forms. For example: coal, crude oil and natural gas. These sources are categorized as fossil fuels, meaning that they were formed in the past due to natural processes from dead organisms. Non-renewable energy has been proven to be very beneficial to the US, however, many people argue the negatives are not worth the benefits.
Fossil fuels are essential to life on earth as we know it today. Our world would certainly be much different if it weren’t for such seemingly simple things such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These basic elements of life on earth may not seem like a major concern to some people until we put into perspective how they have shaped our world today. Civilizations have been built, economies have risen and crumbled, and even wars have been fought over these precious fossil fuels. However, these fossil fuels serve us in ways we may never truly appreciate, as long as we use them as recklessly as we do now. The major entity about fossil fuels is concerning their longevity and permanence in our world, and we all know, they will be around forever.
The most common nonrenewable energy source is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. All of these gases contain carbon in them, which hints why it takes longer to be formed. It’s very harmful to the environment because of that reason, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and also increases global warming. When these gases are burned they release pollutants into the air, land, and water (Tiwari, 2011, p.4). Fossil fuels are very inexpensive to extract and are easily stored and sold around the world. Venezuela is one of the biggest oil production places and their country depends on it economically.
Energy is one thing that the manufacturing industry needs to make products. There are two ways they can obtain this energy; renewable energy and non-renewable energy. Non-renewable resources are resources that will not be created again for millions of years, so whatever supply we have now is all we have until we run out. Non-renewable energy also causes pollutants to be put into the environment. Coal and petroleum are the two main sources of non-renewable energy. Coal is formed by crushing organic material with intense heat and pressure over 300 million years of compaction and is burned to create heat energy. About 30 percent the electricity on earth comes from the burning of coal1.
Oil, one of the important nonrenewable resource, are refined into petroleum products like gasoline. The United States uses so much petroleum for energy that in “2014, total U.S. petroleum consumption was about 19 million barrels per day” (EIA, 2016). As long as Americans drive vehicles that require petroleum products people will have to use this nonrenewable resource. Coal, another nonrenewable resource, is used for steel production. “Global steel production is dependent on coal. 70% of the steel produced today uses coal”, and that means that many public and private buildings include steel when creating them (World Coal Ass 2013). These are nonrenewable sources, therefore meaning that they might run out in the near future. Renewable sources are always available and these sources might be the
1. Fossil fuels are non-renewable resource. They are also important raw materials for medical equipment, cosmetics, plastics, lubricants and synthetic fabrics. The burning of fossil fuels also contributed about three-quarter of human-made CO2 in past 20 years1.