Position Paper on Sustainable Energy Sources

Position Paper on Sustainable Energy Sources

As the world population approaches seven billion people, there is continuing expansion in housing, businesses, roads, and bridges. There also seems to be a necessity for everything to be bigger, faster, stronger, and spectacular to look upon. Unfortunately, while being hypnotized by the marvelous things man has built and achieved, society tends to forget the price to be paid as a result of such unchecked growth. The result is an ever increasing demand for energy that is putting a strain on the ability of natural resources, and the companies that mine them, to keep pace. The problem gets worse when considering that there is limited amount of natural resources, some of which are disappearing at a mind-blowing rate. The most serious and damaging aspects of this unquenchable thirst for energy can be found on any of the seven continents. Among them, there are concerns about the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and contamination of the ocean, rivers, lakes, and groundwater.

The debate about the future of energy is not a question of whether or not to continue using fossil fuels as the primary source. So, what is the focus of debate? First understand that even the big oil companies have even made public statements expressing their desire to find a better alternative to fossil fuels. The fact that oil companies would make these statements publicly, prompts questions that ‘fuel’ the debate. First, what are the possible replacements? The list includes biofuel, nuclear energy, and energy from waste. Then there is renewable energy which includes wind power, solar power, and hydro-electric power. So, which one, or two, would be the most suitable? The answer to that is far more complicated than solving a Rubik’s Cube. All of them are an improvement over the current form and there are a number of supporters for each. But considering the negative aspects of each, renewable energy including solar and wind power, and excluding hydro-electricity, is certainly the best possible choice for the future.

In 2002, the U.K. had 16 operational waste burning facilities including some that used animal excrement as their primary source of power. One source quotes, “The typical energy-from-waste plant generates electricity for 50,000 homes”, while at the same time reducing the amount of waste going into landfills (Coppinger). While the thought of reducing waste and trash making its way into landfills sounds appealing, that is where the appeal ends. The burning of waste poses too many problems starting with public opinion. The image that instantly comes to the minds of most people is smoke and noxious fumes permeating the air that their children, and themselves are breathing. An attempt to build a facility of that kind would lead to a public outcry so fierce, the most stubborn politicians would be forced to come to the defense of their constituents. In addition, the practice of burning waste could be seen as an encouragement to be wasteful, especially in the U.S where no further encouragement is needed.

Another argument for the future is nuclear energy and it is a very persuasive one. In fact, it seems likely that this is the direction in which the future of energy is taking due to the support of the scientific community. Supporters of nuclear power point out, “one pound of uranium contains the energy of roughly one million pounds of coal (Lorenzini)”, therefore the devastation that takes place during the mining process will be reduced to almost nothing by today’s standard. This is a great way to start the argument for nuclear considering the images of strip mining and thousands of oil rigs on and offshore. Not to mention incidents like the Exxon Valdez and the last years’ events in the Gulf of Mexico. Next it is pointed out that “airborne releases from nuclear power plants are insignificant. (Lorenzini)” That sounds great after decades of mass pollution. But what about the dangers of the reactor cores being exposed to air and the radiation that takes following, such as what happened in Chernobyl and more recently in Japan? The response is, that to achieve the amount of deaths related to coal-burning emissions would take “roughly the equivalent of one Chernobyl incident every two or three years. (Lorenzini)”

The ball drops when discussion of waste products from nuclear power begins. The EPA requires storage of such waste products for ten thousand years. Ten thousand years. The waste cannot be buried in the ground either. There is no solution to that problem and it is already a growing concern because of the existing accumulation. The next problem is when the bomb drops, and hopefully not in the literal sense. How do we protect uranium supplies spread across the nation, or worse on a global level? There are real life Dr. Evil’s, hiding in caves, like bin Laden, spending day