Energy

Top Five Energy Issues Facing America:  1. The Main Energy Issue is that we are running out of sources of the energy that we are depending on so greatly, the fossil fuels.  2. Main causes of this problem are that fossil fuels are better in many respects than other energy sources, but are non-renewable. So, people will depend on fossil fuels even though their supply is diminishing. Fossil Fuels account for 85 percent of America’s energy consumption. Despite its limited supply, America is still placing a heavy burden on this energy source. Fossil Fuels are also very cheap. They are cheap to dig up and cheap to convert to energy. As opposed to alternative energy and nuclear energy which cost a lot of money to build and maintain. Fossil Fuels take millions of years to produce, so we can’t start working on fossil fuel farms. We are stuck with what we have and will have to make the best of it.II  3. Main contributors: All oil refineries, drilling, and selling companies. Natural gas/coal miners, The Middle East, OPECIII  4. Regions Impacted: Basically, the entire US because supply and demand would suggest that as the total supply of oil eventually approaches nothing, the cost of oil for gasoline and other uses of petroleum will increase. This would also, deepen the recession if it is still going on or if the recession were over cause serious inflation or possibly a new recession. So, because our entire nation is so dependent on oil, this problem affects all of usVI  5. Estimated Economic Cost of Problem: The US government has spent $750 billion dollars on finding new sources of oil has resulted in little to no change in crude oil reserves and production. One can assume that money spent will increase if anything as the US becomes more desperate with the increasing scarcity of known oil sourcesIII  6. Estimated Cost of development:  7. Estimated Cost (economic, human, and environmental) if not cleaned up: because, as the supply of a product is inversely proportional to its price, as the supply of oil continues to diminish, its price will skyrocket. It is uncertain how long much longer it will be before this occurs, but our economy is already in the crapper, so extremely high prices on a necessity would not help Americans to survive this recession.V And the environmental cost of using oil to this point is fairly obvious because the combustion of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases leading to the global warming of the planet, which is bad. VII  8. Possible Solution: Slowly shift the government spending on fossil fuels towards supporting and creating alternative energy sources (things like grants for research and money for jobs for building and maintenance) and try to make it so that those losing jobs as a result of this shift will get new jobs working with these alternative energy sources.  9. Political Allies of solution: Al Gore, many liberal democrats, the main legislation that has been passed and enacted has been the tax break incentives for those who power their house or car in such a way that greatly reduces fossil fuel emissions  10. Political Adversaries of Solution: basically any proponents of the businesses that are fueled by the oil business or oil drilling. Also, those who are fiscally conservative because shifting towards alternative energy requires a tremendous input of money and requires cutting many jobs involving oil drilling or oil refinery or oil vending, but it could create new jobs and a cleaner environment. The Oil and Gas Industry donated $238.7 million dollars and 75% of it went to republicans, so it is assumed republicans will vote more often in favor of these industries than democrats would. The recent BP oil-spill destroyed the public’s favorable opinion of oil industries because of what happened. IV  __ Bibliography __ I [|**http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/**] II [|**http://www.planete-energies.com/content/oil-gas.html**] III [| http**://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/09/23/finding-new-oil-gets-ever-more-expensive/**] IV [|**http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/background.php?lname=E01&year=2009**] V [|**http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704520504576162780011205242.html?mg=reno-wsj**] VI [|**http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165750,00.html**] VII [|**http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-01-30-ipcc-report_x.htm**] VIII [|**http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Resolved:_The_United_States_federal_government_should_substantially_increase_alternative_energy_incentives_in_the_United_States**]
 * 1)  Fossil Fuels are running low
 * 2)  Nuclear Energy
 * 3)  Changing to alternatives
 * 4)  Wastes
 * 5)  High Demand for energy