2010
The Energy Crisis in America
Zachary Smallwood
Section: 121
11/11/2010
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There is a major energy crisis in this country and I’d like to begin with the actual
problem. The United States demand for energy continues to increase daily. We need
energy to travel, power our factories, cook and even warm our homes. In the United
States we have two major sources of energy, oil and coal. Coal comes from fossils that
when turned into energy damages the ozone of this planet and is not a renewable
source, once we run out its done. We will no longer be able to rely on that for energy.
Oil is also non renewable and we are slowly drilling and pumping it all out of the ground
and using it to power our lives. Most economists believe we are close to peaking in the
amount of crude oil left in the world. We have already had a test run on the effects of
diminishing oil from 2008. Oil was not being produced as quickly as we were demanding
it. Robert Hirsch quoted a GAO report saying “an imminent peak and sharp decline in oil
production could cause a worldwide recession.”
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Utah’s Oil Prices
Product
Domestic/Crude Oil
Retail/Regular Gasoline per
Gallon
Retail/Diesel per Gallon
Utah
$80,840
$2.498
U.S.
$87,060
$2.545
n/a
$2.798
There are a lot of things that this country can do to address the energy crisis we
face today. I was fortunate enough to watch two documentaries “Fuel” by Joshua
Tickell and “A Crude Awakening: the Oil Crash” by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack.
The movie “Fuel” had a lot of great ideas for fixing the energy crisis in this country. I’m
going to go through a few that were presented in “Fuel” and provide their pros and
cons. I will be going through a few different topics in this paper of alternatives to fossil
fuels.
1) Biodiesel
2) Nuclear Power
3) Wind Power
4) Algae as biofuel
Biodiesel
Biodiesel was at one time thought to be the greatest alternative to crude oil.
Biodiesel is “the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic,
renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any
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level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compressionignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use,
biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics” (What is
Biodiesel?). Using biodiesel was thought to be a better alternative to crude oil because
it’s better for the environment and we could grow and use it here in America, such as
soybeans and corn ethanol.
However, biodiesel is doing exactly the opposite of what its supporters wanted.
It’s causing accelerated global warming that is hurting the world in the name of saving it.
“Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks,
biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes
to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being
plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves” (Grunwald).
This caused a lot of
supporters to jump off the biodiesel wagon and continue their search for a better
renewable energy source.
Gasoline
Price
Diesel
Price
November ’10
$2.86
November ’10
$3.11
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power was, and some say still is, a very large contender to become the
alternative to fossil fuels. “Worldwide, about 440 plants now generate 16 percent of
the planet's electric power, and some countries have gone heavily nuclear. France, for
instance, gets 78 percent of its electricity from fission” (Parfit). This was thought to be a
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great alternative because of abundant power, no blots on the landscape except for
containment domes and no carbon emissions. China is currently facing shortages of
power and has started to build new nuclear reactors at a fast pace.
The major problems with nuclear energy stem from two sources, economics and
safety. Economic opponents of nuclear power say that the cost of building nuclear
power plants is too high, that the parts and labor of such buildings are unusually steep
in cost. Most of this can be changed though with loan guarantees and other federal
incentives. As more nuclear plants get built the more demand for parts and labor
become and this will naturally drive down the price. “NRG Energy Inc., based in
Princeton, N.J., has filed an application to build a reactor adjacent to an existing plant in
Texas. Though it's too early to know how much the plant will eventually cost – or even
if it ultimately will get built – high natural-gas prices alone are enough to justify
construction, according to NRG” (Totty).
The other problem opponents say is safety. People are doubtful
because of the tragic explosion at a Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986
and the accident on Three Mile Island in 1979. The United States has
taken precautions against future accidents, now relying more on gravity
than pipes and pumps to move the cool water to the hot nuclear core.
Even if there were a serious accident the nuclear plants are designed to
make sure radiation does not spill out. Chernobyl lacked these safety
features such as a massive reinforced concrete structure with walls that
were as much as four feet thick. “Furthermore, look at safety more
broadly – from an environmental perspective. The death and destruction
stemming from global warming far exceed what is likely to happen if
there is a nuclear accident. And yet, when we talk about safety, we seem
to focus only on the risks of nuclear power” (Totty, 2008).
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Wind Energy
Wind powered energy can be either very powerful or extremely weak. Wind is
warmed air by the sun and in theory is just another way of collecting solar energy. One
wind turbine can produce up to two megawatts. Europe is currently having a huge wind
energy boom, producing about 35,000 megawatts which equals about 35 coal fired
power plants. The United States which has a huge potential for wind energy production
is second, next to Europe, with only 7,000 megawatts. Utah, for instance, only produces
about 19 megawatts or 0.3% of the state’s total energy production through wind
turbines (n.d.).
Some people do not like the aesthetic look to wind turbines and do not want the
look on their “scenic” parts of the country. “There are other challenges. Like sailboats,
wind turbines can be becalmed for days. To keep the grid humming, other sources, such
as coal-fired power plants, have to stand ready to take up the slack. But when a strong
wind dumps power into the grid, the other generators have to be turned down, and
plants that burn fuel are not quickly adjustable. A wind-power bonanza can become a
glut. Denmark, for example, is sometimes forced to unload power at uneconomic rates
to neighbors like Norway and Germany” (Parfit, 2008).
The plus side to wind power and the same for solar power is that they are both
able to be put into residential homes as they can be made on a smaller scale and can be
more portable to the users. When the energy is not being used, it can be fed back into
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the power grid for another person to use. From a capitalist point of view this is
definitely a great way to make some money if you live in a fairly breezy place.
Algae as a Biofuel
One
of
the
most exciting remedies
for the energy crisis to
me is another form of
biofuel called Algae.
Algae are a large and
diverse
simple,
group
of
typically
autotrophic organisms. They are mostly made up of unicellular and multicellular forms.
Seaweed is a common type of Algae. Algae as a biofuel has really started to pick up.
ExxonMobil, in partnership with Synthetic Genomics, Inc., is researching the benefits of
algae bio-oil and determining if it is a viable solution to the energy crisis. In July 2010
ExxonMobil announced they were expanding their research and opened a new green
house facility in La Jolla, California. This greenhouse will allow Exxon and SGI to examine
the different types of growth of algae say in an open pond setting and closed
photobioreactors. They would like to see how both natural and engineered strains react
when under different lighting, climate and fed different nutrients. “Since ExxonMobil
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and SGI announced the algae biofuel program last July, researchers have made
substantial progress, including:

Isolating and/or engineering a large number of candidate algal strains and
developing growth conditions under which these strains could be made more
productive;

Identifying and testing some of the preferred design characteristics of the
different production systems; and

Initiating life cycle and sustainability studies to assess the impact of each step in
the process on greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water use” (Algae
biofuels, n.d.).
Some of the benefits to algal bio-oil are; algae are easy to grow using land and water
that is normally unsuitable for food and normal plant growth. There are select species
of Algae that produce bio-oil through photosynthesis. Large quantities of algae can be
grown rapidly which makes it easier to test different strains for quick production. If this
testing proves to be a success, algae bio oil would be able to produce gasoline, diesel
and jet fuel that meet the same requirements as oil.
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Laws that can be changed to reflect better energy
standards
These are all alternatives to remedy the problems with our energy crisis in
America. In addition to these alternatives there should be incentives for the United
States to be a leader in developing alternative energy. The tariff on ethanol should be
repealed.
Due to high gasoline prices food prices are skyrocketing due to the
production, transporting and processing of foods. Eliminating this tariff would allow a
higher demand than just as a blending agent for gasoline. Through a loophole oil
companies are able to import ethanol by the thousands of gallons without having to pay
the 54 cent tariff.
The department of energy’s clean coal research should be shut down. For
decades there has been research supported by every president since Ronald Reagan.
This has been a costly and unproductive exercise for the taxpayer’s point of view. This
research is trying to find ways to burn coal cleanly. I don’t believe that taxpayers or
environmental groups approve of spending tax payer money; it is time to focus on a
renewable source of energy.
With these alternatives to using oil and coal as our primary energy resource and
with the removal the laws I provided. The two most important methods of alternative
energy to me are wind and using algae. Wind would be able to be installed in almost
every home in the nation along with solar power we’d be able to practically supply our
own energy. Algae bio-fuel is something that is very early in the energy game but from
what I have shown I believe it is as promising as wind and solar. I think that we would
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be a more sustainable and livable country for everyone and safeguard the planet for
future generations.
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Bibliography
Grunwald, Michael. The Clean Energy Scam. New York City: Time Publishing, 2010.
n.d. "Utah Renewable Electricity." n.d.
Parfit, Michael. Powering the Future. 2008. 3 November 2010
<http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature1/fulltext.html>.
Totty, Michael. The Case for and Against Nuclear Power. 3 November 2010
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121432182593500119.html>.
What is Biodiesel? 11 November 2010 <http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/biodiesel_basics/>.