Renewable Resources? Low Carbon Tech?

Electricity is generated from many different sources. Department of Energy estimated 40% of our total demands come from oil (Oil, 2008). Another great energy source comes from coal. One-fourth of the coal reserve belongs to the United States. More than half of the electricity consumed by Americans is made by burning coal (Coal, 2008). Even though coal is abundant, we must address the emissions from coal-fired power plants. Burning coal produces carbon dioxide, a major contributor to the green house effect. Scientists and environmentalists are working together to come up with technologies that can harvest from renewable resources. These renewable recourses capture natural energy and turn into useful energy. Many of us are quite familiar with the natural energy such as solar power and wind power. But how many of us are really aware of the actual benefits to our environment?

Solar Power

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200704/r139061_476078.jpg, June 21, 2008

About 70% of the energy is being absorbed by Earth while the remaining 30 % is reflected back into space. The amount of energy given off to earth is about 174 PetaWatts or 174,000,000,000,000,000 Watts at the upper atmosphere (Solar Energy, 2008). How much is that? An average home requires about 1000 Watts (Power Consumption of a Home, 2004). With this substantial amount of energy, solar thermal electric power plants can convert the radiation from sun into heat and then drives turbines to generate electricity. This renewable resource sounds promising. However, at the current capital costs, it is very expensive to build solar panels and set up plants capturing the solar energy. Even though installing large solar panels around our homes and office buildings are way out of our budget, it’s promising to see road signs have solar power panel installed. We can definitely use this as a stepping stone to this promising and free energy from the sun.

Wind Power

http://www.ourworldfoundation.org.uk/sol-nof.htm, June 19, 2008

Wind, caused by movement of the air, is the fastest growing technology in the world. This free energy can generate energy through kinetic energy to generate electricity. Wind power can be called a clean source because it does not produce any greenhouse gases. In 2007, wind industry in the U.S. grew by 45%, with half being contributed by Texas. The state of Texas, now the current leader, produces electricity equivalent to power more than one million homes in Texas (Texas Wind Energy, 2008). A lot of Texans are renting out their farm land to install windmills. It’s another great way to make profits for farmers and beneficial to the environment.

Landfill Gas

http://www.methanetomarkets.org/landfills/landfills-bkgrd.htm, June 21, 2008

I’m sure everyone is horrified by these smells when material decomposes. These smelly gases contain carbon dioxide and methane. Besides cows, landfill is one of the major contributors to methane gas. Methane, a damaging greenhouse gas, as well as a combustible gas, must be controlled near landfill areas. Instead of burning them into the atmosphere, why not capture them to become useful energy? EPA estimated as of December 2007, 445 operational facilities are installed in United States. These facilities prevented more than 28 million metric tons of carbon equivalents into the atmosphere in the past 13 years. In year 2007, 21 million metric tons of carbon equivalent has been controlled. This is equivalent to having 14 million passenger vehicles on the road. This also prevents Carbon Dioxide emissions from the consumption of about 182 million barrels of oil or from burring more than 408,000 railcars of coal (Landfill Methane Outreach Program, 2008). Who says trash is useless? These are only a few renewable energy sources. They are free and contribute minimal pollutions to the environment. Until then, turn off the light if you are not using them. Conserving energy is the best remedy for abusing our resources.

Work Cited:

Department of Energy. 2008. Oil. June 19, 2008. http://www.doe.gov/energysources/oil.htm Department of Energy. 2008. Coal. June 19, 2008. http://www.doe.gov/energysources/coal.htm Wikipedia. 2008. Solar Energy. June 19, 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
Power Consumption of a Home. 2003. Power Consumption of a Home. June 19, 2008 http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiLu.shtml
State Energy Conservation Office. 2008. Texas Wind Energy. June 19, 2008. http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind.htm
Environmental Protection Agency. 2008. Landfill Methane Outreach Program. June 19, 2008 http://www.epa.gov/lmop/accomplish.htm