Issue 1: Drilling for oil in the ocean
When the cost of oil reaches a certain point, the government is going to approve four more deep-water drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. Develop an argument that supports or refutes this action. Make sure to include an explanation with details.
I don’t support this action of government.
The western and central Gulf of Mexico (Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi) is one of the major oil-producing regions of the US. And offshore gas and oil mitigate the major demand of oil in United States. Although there are some advantages of expansion of oil drilling but these advantages are overshadowed by several arguments that don’t support this proposal.
Oil Spills Argument :
For drilling oil well on the ocean floor several platforms legs are embedded in the seabed which caused some spectacular oil spills. Since 1955, there have been 50 accidental incidents on ocean drilling rigs that caused the leakage and release of natural gas and oil into the ocean. The two largest failures occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1979 the deadly explosion of Ixtoc I oil rig was estimated to have release 500,000 and 780,000 barrels of oil( 700 metric tons) that contaminated the water of Gulf of Mexico.
In 2010 April 20, explosion of Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico which is connected to a well of oil company BP, was the largest accidental oil spill in history. This caused release of thousands of barrels of oil in the ocean threatening wildlife and local economy.
Besides this drilling of the US coast is difficult and dangerous due to vacillating weather conditions and other natural calamities. Transport of crude oil from the ocean is affected by the environmental risk during normal operations. Most of the oil spilled was caused by the hurricane. Although oil extraction process has improved, small oil spills are regular incident.
Oil Companies already have oil leases argument
Several oil companies of the world have occupied as many as 5,500 oil leases that are not being used. According to the Department of the Interior there are 68 billion barrels of oil are accessible in areas already open to offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Thus use of this area would be beneficial instead of expansion of the drilling area.
Investing in Alternative Energy Sources Argument
Extension of drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico would distract the United States from developing renewalable alternative energy sources that would give lot of advantages to world economy and also give protection of environment and would ameliorate job crisis. Some say that offshore oil production will help keep the economy afloat until it can transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable resources. But keeping the priority and emphasis on the traditional fuel sources and establishment of new offshore oil reserves would diverse the initiative of developing renewable energy sources.
Issue 2: Alternative energy – funding for alternative energy sources will be increased:
Alternative energy like solar, wind, tidal energies are renewable energy sources because they are naturally replenishable. Still we depends only on few nonrenewable energy source like oil and gas whose price is growing larger as they are continue to be depleted. In this scenario we must have to develop alternative energy sources that would be more accessible to the public.
One of the most important renewable energy for which funding should be increase is solar energy.
The sun could be an ultimate solution of world’s energy problem. Its energy could easily surpass the world’s energy demands as its energy quantity is 600 times greater than the total amount of energy produced by all other sources per day. But it is one of the largest untapped sources of alternative energy.
Due to high cost for manufacturing solar panels compared to the cost of electricity from conventional sources, primarily solar power generation has been slow. But because of advance solar technology the production cost for solar cells decreases significantly and it is continued to drop down. For instance, in 1980, cost of solar cells was $ 20 per watt but now it’s became $ 3 even $1 per watt. This lower cost along with global energy demand would help to boost interest and investment in production of solar energy as a feasible source of clean energy.
More over manufacture of solar energy has little effect on environment.
Thus initial investment would mitigate the future energy crisis and would give us a safer and cleaner earth for future.
Issue 3: Energy and the economy:
Energy consumption and economic growth are closely related. Because proper use of energy could accelerate the economic growth. More efficient use of energy may conserve energy and entail the growth of economy. The conventional thought that pollution is an unavoidable consequences of energy use is not valid today, because use of renewable energy doesn’t cause pollution and also ameliorate economic growth.
Nation must be selective for use of energy, so that economy can be grow by use of that energy. This can be explained in respect of use of ethanol as fuel.
The net energy required to produce ethanol includes fuel used by farmer to till plant, harvest and transport of corn and to fermentation of corn and distillation of ethanol.
Economic analysis:
Cost comparison:
In the united states, ethanol is added to gasoline (10%) to increase the octane of the gasoline/ethanol mixture. this mixture can be used in unmodified engines and improves engine performance, and decrease air pollution. E85 which contain 85% ethanol and 15 % gasoline is also used. As ethanol contains 67.2 % and E85 contains 72 % of the gasoline, cost of these fuels is less than gasoline. Cost of gasoline is $3/ gallon, while ethanol $2 and E85 is $2.15 per gallon.
Tax issue:
In United States tax credit for ethanol seller is $0,45/gallon, it effectively reduces the price of ethanol fuel by 45 cents/gallon at the taxpayers’ expense. Otherwise price of ethanol would be higher and ethanol would be competitive with gasoline.
Cost of corn:
Higher demand for corn to produce ethanol has caused the increase of price of corn. As most of the corn produced in the United States is used for animal feed, higher demand of corn increases the feed price for livestock and results in higher prices for meat products. Higher demand and higher price of corn encourage the farmers to harvest more corn.
Environmental issue:
As production and use of ethanol does not results pollution, it save money that has to be paid by the government for removal of pollutants and to clean the environment.
Issue 4: Nonrenewable resources and their use:
Progressive use of several nonrenewable resources exerts severe impact on environment. Major nonrenewable resources are fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas which supplies 80% of the world energy. Extraction, processing and transportation of these fossil fuel present several environmental problems.
Environmental issues regarding coal:
Landscape distortion:
During mining top soil, mountain tops and overburden are removed to get access of the coal. This mining process distorts landscape like rock and soil is pushed into the adjacent valley and the streams that flow in the valley become contaminated with soil and rocks. During processing coals are washed and it produce a liquids waste known as coal slurry that are stored in a dams at the processing site. Leakage of these dams may pollute local streams, river.
Acid mine drainage:
The sulfur of the coal can react with water, oxygen and some bacteria can convert the sulfur into sulfuric acid can be washed away with rain water and contaminate river and streams water. Acidification of stream and river water destroy aquatic ecosystem and all aquatic animals die except certain bacteria and algae.
Air pollution:
Dust generated from coal mining and transportation released into the atmosphere and cause air pollution. Burning of coal for electric generation produces several toxic gases like sulfur-di oxide, carbon di-oxide, carbon monoxide mercury etc. all these toxic gases are released into the atmosphere and cause air pollution. Sulfur di oxide cause acid rain, carbon di oxide because global warming and mercury tends to accumulate in the animal’s body through biomagnifications.
Environmental issues regarding oil:
Oil spills are major environmental problem. As oil is liquid it can easily spread through the breakage of or leakage of oil transporting pipes and contaminates ground water, surface water. Oil on the ocean surface can coat the aquatic animals like fish, aquatic birds, and reptiles. As oil is toxic it can be harmful to marine animals. If oil reaches on the shore it coats the surface soil and kills the vegetation and shore animals, and make the place unsuitable for swimming, boating, fishing and other human activities. There are several instances of accidental exploration of oil drilling rig like Ixtoc 1 1979, oil drill exploration and Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. These two devastating exploration caused severe damage in the ocean life.
Environmental issues regarding nuclear power point:
Ionizing radiation emerge from nuclear disintegration cause several damage of animal cells. It mainly damages the DNA of cell and cause several mutation that cause several lifethreating problems like cancer, skin disease, birth defect etc. there are several instances of devastating nuclear power plant accident like Chernobyl 1986.
Issue 5: Renewable resources and their use:
The major renewable energy sources are solar energy, wind energy, tidal power, geothermal energy, biomass energy etc. use of these renewable energy is safer than nonrenewable energy in respect to environmental effects. Because energy exerts lithe environmental problem in comparison with traditional nonrenewable energy. This can be explained by comparing the effects of any of the renewable and nonrenewable energy:
If we think about the effect of coal we see that coal may cause following environmental problems:
Mining and transportation of coal produce dense dust particles that produce severe air pollution and also cause land distortion.
More over coal slurry may contaminate local streams and river
Burning of coal emits various toxic gases like CO2, SO2, CO, mercury that harshly damage environment. SO2 cause acid rain, CO2 cause global warming, CO cause air pollution, smog etc. Mercury accumulate within animals body through biomagnifications and damage several cellular mechanisms
The effect of renewable energy like tidal power has much less impact on environment. It never causes air pollution, never release toxic gases. Thus environmental of tidal power is negligible. Though change of tidal flows by damming the bay or estuaries in some areas may have impacts on shoreline and aquatic ecosystem but it’s not that enormous like nonrenewable energy.
Like tidal power other nonrenewable energies like solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy etc. has very minute or negligible impact on environments. But other nonrenewable energy like oil, natural gas nuclear power plant etc. all cause more or less air pollution and other environmental problems.
Thus from this discussion it is clear that renewable energy is less harmful and safe to use.
Reference:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/gulf-oil-spill-ixtoc.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/us/jan-june10/drill_issues.pdfhttp://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/energy-consumption-economic-development-and-co2-emissions-selected-latin-america-countries_272b
