The US in the twenty-first century experiences a big task of effectively controlling the progression from a mainly carbon-intensive economy (which is a leading contributor to global warming due to the increasing rates of carbon dioxide emission from processing plants) to being a primarily clean energy economy. The central debate arises that society depends on the roots of 3E (environment, economics, and energy). Society requires to hold all energy options open to gratify the rising market: the consumer and industrial flow of energy and their environmental impacts are more significant since they affect the countries social, regulatory, political, and economic factors. Hence a nation's economy directly depends on the transformation and use of resources. The sources of energy are nuclear power, hydro, and carbon-based fuels. As a result of their use, availability, performance, and cost, fossil fuels continue being a dominant source of energy together with the hydro and nuclear. The other renewable sources of energy like biomass, solar, and wind power have a higher likelihood of significantly growing in terms of importance. This essay argues that using alternative/renewable energy is more economical and beneficial to the ecological system as well.
The world energy economy has the most significant impact on the choices that individuals and governments make. Current universal rates of consumption are draining the planet's capacity to sustaining our lifestyle. Increase in demand implies a rise in costs in each area of the world economy. Several alternative energy organizations are generating new savings to encourage a progressively manageable energy market.
Human activity overloads the atmosphere by emitting global warming pollutants such as carbon dioxide. The gases trap heat and cause a snare of massive and destructive effects, from recurring, stronger seasons of drought. In the US, around twenty-nine percent of air pollutants and contributors to global warming, originate from power plants (Washburne 29). The vast majority of these secretions arise from non-renewable energy like coal and natural gas. Interestingly, most alternative sources of energy contain very minimal emissions. Even while incorporating "life cycle" discharges of clean energy (that is, the emissions from every phase of the manufacturing process - decommissioning, operation, installation, and manufacturing), the global warming emissions linked to alternative energy are insignificant (Obama 128).
The air and water contamination from fossil fuels are associated with premature deaths, breathing difficulties, heart attacks, neurological damage, and cancer. Majority of these adverse health effects result from water and air pollution that clean energy technologies do not emit, and they affect every ecological system. Geothermal and biomass power plants, such as natural gas and coal-fired power plants, might need water to act as a coolant. Hydroelectric power plants could affect the river's ecosystem both downstream and upstream from the dam. Additionally, since most natural gas, nuclear, and coal plants rely on getting enough water for cooling, in case of severe heat waves or droughts, electricity generation could be at risk. Solar and photovoltaic wind grids do not depend on water for electricity generation. Hence they could reliably operate in conditions which might otherwise prompt closing a power plant run by fossil fuels. The risk of disruptive events might as well rise in the future as severe wildfires, intense storms, heatwaves, and droughts become overly frequent because of global warming - thus the high need for clean, resilient technologies.
The United States is as of now having challenges in the energy sector. Inefficient electricity sources have been in use for a long time, and the damage that it is doing to the nation has begun to be visible. Alternate sources of energy are the best way to stop, or even hinder the inescapable downfall of the environment. The only possible achievement for renewable energy is thus actualizing off-grid networks which apply inexhaustible sources as their principal sources of energy, with the goal that the nation could conceivably evade the energy groove that it is currently facing. Americans are squandering their limited resources like nuclear and coal when they could be applying renewable sources that will never end. Majority of the residents never care to think of the whole process of generating the electricity that they use. Being aware of the kind of resources that power the nation, ought to be a big concern for the government. In 2015, the US produced around four trillion kilowatt-hours of power approximately sixty-seven percent of the electricity generated was from sources of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum (Hodge 375). Today, minimal alternative sources are in use; powering the nation, which is a surprise to most people since it appears as though there are solar panels all over the place.
Using alternative energy is probably among the few solutions for future energy needs. It is perceived to be non-terminating, clean, and safe energy. Additionally, renewable energy in most cases brings substantial economic advantages to industries using it. Even though renewable energy is at times less reliable, time-consuming, and expensive; it continues being the best solution for future energy needs when it comes to having a safer environment.
The finding of broad measures of natural gas shale resources in the US and the progression of drilling machines which help in developing these resources have drastically reformed the nation's energy sector. Throughout the years, the United States costs of natural gas have plummeted as petroleum prices have been on the rise significantly. The virtually unparalleled transformation in the proportion of oil to natural gas costs displays an excellent prospect for the US. It is generating economic openings all over the nation amid what seems to be severe financial crisis, lessening the value of energy for most Americans, changing the blend of electricity sources on the grid in a system which mitigates carbon outflows, and in the long-term provide a chance to reinforce the energy security (Obama 128).
Decreasing the nation's reliance on oil-based sources of energy in favor of natural gas can have numerous advantages-including the improvement of a progressively differing set of alternatives that do not compel America's foreign policy decisions and gives great assurance against oil cost stuns in the future. The main indications of a change to expanded dependence on natural gas in the transportation industry are starting to rise, yet this progress cannot survive long enough unless people and the government make practical policy choices.
Alternative energy is quite essential for natures cleanliness and safety. Energy acquired from geothermal, wind, water, and solar radiation energy is from nature. All these energy sources are renewable means since they could be applied over and over without causing pollution and harming the ozone layer (Washburne 17). For instance, solar energy, obtained directly from the sun rays, could be useful in generating electricity and it is always available for recycling, more reliable, and safer at all times. The demand for alternative energy is rising at a high rate.
If companies and industries take the approach of using such diverse methods of generating energy, there will be a safer and cleaner future with decreased pollution effects, and a less damaged ozone layer, there will be no harm to nature from energy emissions. All this could come to pass when individuals take time to contemplate about their contribution to environmental pollution which in turn affects human health and life. After all, when the resources in the world get depleted, the next option would be to use renewable energy. Nevertheless, by then, every type of healthy lifestyle on earth would be destroyed by the extreme rates of pollution experienced today.
Industries should, therefore, start using alternative energy as soon as possible for a future safe environment. Renewable energy continues being on high demand since technology happens to be on a high rise, and this constant evolution needs additional power to be at par with its rate; this as well means that affordable, different, clean, and new sources of power ought to be found or created (Hodge 57). Renewable energy is also known as clean energy since irrespective of however much its production rate is, it never creates as much waste as usual power does. Production of alternative energy involves a clean process since we get it from natural elements from the earth, and burning them causes no harm to the environment like fossil fuels do; hence the phrase 'clean' refers to forms of energy sources which are less harmful and environment-friendly.
Clean energy is thus a necessity in eliminating the growing issue of global warming and other forms of pollution. It is also efficient since, with the current rate of consuming non-renewable resources, they could end up becoming extinct living their toxic wastes behind (Hodge 371). For instance, the extraction of geothermal energy from earth's heat, and using it in electricity production, serves to utilize the raw material and give a less harmful source of power compared to fuel combustion. Another limitless resource is the sun; solar panels have turned out to be prevalent all around the globe, and several homes, organizations, and nations have begun to put resources into them hoping to change their sources of energy, be economical, and become eco-friendlier. Alternative energies like Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) are two clean alternatives that remove thirty percent fewer greenhouse gases compared to gasoline or diesel, and apart from reducing air pollution (Hodge 375), it is additionally useful in lessening sound pollution from vehicles and other machinery.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, local governments additionally could profit from clean energy, mostly income taxes and property and various installments from renewable energy ventures. Land proprietors on which wind turbines are constructed regularly get rent installments going from three thousand dollars to six thousand dollars per megawatt of connected volume, together with compensations for road rights of way and electrical cable easements (UCS). They might as well gain reputations depending on the project's yearly incomes. Rural landowners and ranchers could create new sources of additional earnings by delivering feedstocks for biomass control facilities.
Conclusion
In comparison to fossil fuel technologies, that are usually exhaustive on capital and automated, the industry of renewable energy additionally focuses on providing job opportunities for the people. Wind turbines require professionals to maintain them, while solar panels need people to do the installation job. That implies that, averagely, there are more careers in every unit of power produced from sustainable sources than from fossil fuels. Sustainable power sources as of now provide several employment opportunities in the US. For instance, the wind energy industry took in more than one-hundred thousand full-time employees in 2016 in several areas such as legal, financial, and consulting services, transport and logistics, operations and maintenance, construction of wind turbines, project development, and manufacturing. Over five-hundred processing plants in the US make parts for wind turbines, and wind energy projects represented thirteen billion dollars in savings in 2016 only. Other sustainable power technologies hire considerably more workforce. The solar industry hired over two-hundred and sixty thousand individuals in 20016, integrating occupations...
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