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Davis Vaughan Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1103 2 December 2013 Forward Progress: Fossil Fuels or Renewable Energy?

We have a problem, America; a problem that is going to destroy our future generations unless something is done about it. We have been so irresponsible with our fossil fuel energy resources that we are going to inflict serious and possibly unfixable damages on our atmosphere in the form of ozone depletion and atmospheric warming. It is going to happen, unless something major is done to halt the process and get us moving in the other direction. Why does this matter? some might ask. Why should I care about this small temperature change? We should all care. This temperature increase would have numerous effects, including altering rain patterns, and intensifying already extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods. According to EnergyBeyond Oil, by Fraser Armstrong, this would destroy parts of croplands for pretty much all countries, resulting in a much lower production of crops and the potential to put farmers out of a job (223). So, now we care, but what can we do about this? The answer is not simple by any means, but it comes in the form of renewable energy. Specifically, energy based in four areas: geothermal, wind, nuclear, and solar. Before we jump into renewable energy, however, we should first see if proponents of fossil fuels think we will ever need to make the switch at all. Charles Mann, of The Atlantic, does not think so. In his article, No, Really; Were Going to Keep Burning Oiland Lots of It, one of Manns main arguments is about how much cheaper (and therefore profitable) it is to produce

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natural gas instead of renewable energy. Because of this, no one will ever want to make the switch. He even provides these figures from the Energy Information Administration that by 2018: -Natural-gas cost will be: $67.10/MWh -Wind cost will be: $86.60/MWh -Solar photovoltaic cost will be: $144.30/MWh (Mann) Now, even Mann admits that these estimates are difficult to make, and an important point to think about is that these do not include the environmental costs of producing such energy. While wind and solar energys environmental costs will be relatively low; the cost of natural gas will skyrocket if these are included because of the huge amount of carbon emissions it sends into the atmosphere. With these included, there is a much greater chance that the renewable energy price will be less than the fossil fuel price.

Geothermal Geothermal energy may be one of the best ways for the average person to have an impact on the problem at hand. Daily, enormous amounts of gas or oil are needed to keep water heated in homes. Low temperature geothermal systems that include geothermal heat pumps could be a prime alternative to this problem. Normal heat pumps bring outdoor air into a condenser and transfer that air, that heat, into a home through a fan. However, this does not work as well during the winter when the air is cold. The pumps must work much harder to turn this cold air into heat (Armstrong 43). This is why geothermal heat pumps are crucial. Instead of pulling from the air, they use the warm, and more importantly stable, heat from the ground to heat the air that gets pumped into the house. Since the ground remains a constant temperature year round, this system

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works much less than a normal heat pump. Besides air, these systems also have the ability to heat water. By using the ground as a natural heater, no extra unnecessary energy is used. According to Armstrong, by switching to these systems, the average home will save 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide compared to natural gas, and 3.6 tons of carbon dioxide compared to oil per year (183). The best way to apply these circulation systems into practice is to add them into new building designs. It would be much less costly to add them to new houses instead of trying to replace the water heating systems in houses that currently stand, and there is no reason that new buildings could not incorporate these new systems into their designs. The main argument against geothermal energy is that it costs more than a conventional heating system. In the short run, this may be true. However, the projected time that it would take the geothermal system to pay for itself is about fifteen years, and since a house is normally a long-term investment, this is a negligible factor (Armstrong 37). Wind Wind is an idea that has already jumped ahead to being one of the fastest growing sources of renewable energy. There are multiple ways that wind energy can come into play to be a major factor for energy provision. Granted, there are places in the United States especially, where wind energy is not going to be efficient. These places include many of the southeastern states like Florida or Georgia, just because of a lack of wind there. However, much of the northwest United States has a high potential for efficient turbines. Wind turbines generate electricity by using the wind to rotate the blades, which are connected to a generator. Inside the generator is a magnetic rotor that spins and causes electrons inside copper wire to become excited, generating electricity (Gipe). One type of wind turbine is the AVX1000 turbine from AerVironment.

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AVX1000 at the Logan International Airport

http://www.onestopgreen.com/innovative-product-solutions/wind-solutions/architectural-wind-avx1000/architectural-windavx1000.aspx

This specific turbine is designed to combat any and all possible arguments against it, such as: Argument 1) Wind turbines have low aesthetic value and high noise pollution. Not necessarily. These smaller turbines are placed on top of tall buildings to collect the strong gusts of wind that form there. Therefore, they are not seen unless you are actually looking for them. They are also designed to be much quieter than the generic large wind turbine (Armstrong 77). Argument 2) Wind turbines kill hundreds of birds every year! Although generic, large turbines have killed birds every year, these turbines are different in that they are placed on top of buildings. Because these buildings are so tall, adding small turbines to the top will not cause any additional bird deaths that the buildings were not already creating (77). Argument 3) Turbines take up too much space and the opportunity cost is very high. Two things about this. First, the turbines placed on buildings will not take up much room whatsoever. And second, the generic, large wind turbine that is placed out on the countryside only takes up a large vertical room. There would still be plenty of space underneath it for agriculture to grow (Gipe).

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Argument 4) Too many turbines would be needed to be efficient! Not necessarily. According to Paul Gipes research on Wind Works, one AVX1000 turbine could produce an average of anywhere from 1000-1900 kWh/year, getting up to 5000kwh/year if placed in prime position. To put this in perspective, the average American house uses about 1000 kWh/year. So to power a house, only one would be needed if they had the space for it. For more practical uses, however, these would be installed on high buildings. For example, Gipe also reported that Bostons Logan International Airport has installed 20 of these turbines, and the projected output is near 100,000 kWh/year. Placed up high with an aesthetically appealing build, these turbines would not be in the way whatsoever (Gipe). Wind technology has many benefits for the future, especially for larger buildings and even skyscrapers. Unlike geothermal, it would not be much of a problem to install them onto preexisting buildings to allow them to switch over to renewable sources of energy. Nuclear Nuclear energy always seems to be a hot topic as a viable renewable resource. A major reason for this is because of the actual possibility that nuclear energy plants could put oil companies out of business. The high output from nuclear energy and almost negligible carbon emission compared to the smog produced by oil companies makes it a great contender to overtake the competition. Top dollar oil plants are obviously not happy about this. According to Jim Marston of EDF (Environmental Defense Fund), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is pushing for a curriculum that would teach climate change denial in schools around the country and has had success in getting this balanced teaching plan passed in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona (Marston). This may make some kind of noticeable change in the minds of youth later down the road, but for now, no one can really say.

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Some have claimed multiple problems with nuclear energy. Obviously, a big concern is over safety. Nuclear meltdowns can be extremely fatal, and a clear example of that seems to be Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor in Ukraine that had a massive meltdown. However, it should be noted that Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion whatsoever. According to scientist Bela Liptak, of the website CONTROL, Chernobyl was in fact caused by poorly trained, night shift workers running a test on the system that they performed incorrectly, resulting in a power generator exploding and causing a steam explosion that only then released an enormous amount of radioactivity (Liptak). The key idea here is that this could have been prevented. This was not a random factor within the nuclear energy process that could naturally occur at any time. No, this was due to a lack of proper training, and errors like that can be helped. Another issue with nuclear energy is that it is very expensive. A new passive nuclear plant design would help solve this by making it impossible for a nuclear meltdown to occur. The science behind this is complicated but basically passive energy means that there is a plug that would melt if anything went wrong and any radioactive material would flow into a storage container to be cooled (Liptak). This means that much less money would need to be spent on the countless security systems that are now put in place to counter for the damage that may occur if a nuclear meltdown actually happened. This cheaper method would be an incredible step forward from using fossil fuels, making it much more environmentally friendly to generate electricity. Solar Ah, yes, solar energy. This might be the Big Kahuna of possible renewable energy sources. Armstrong seems to think so, for in EnergyBeyond Oil, he states, Our present needs could be met by covering .5% of Earths surface with PV (photovoltaic) installations that achieve a conversion efficiency of 10% (120). So why has this not been done yet? With the current

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technology available to us, it would be much too expensive to try to do this. Also, the efficiency factor is not up to par with what it should be in order for this to be effective everywhere these solar energy devices might be placed. However, there is a promising new technology being researched called third generation photovoltaic cells. On the bulk scale, altering the solar absorbance levels of semiconductors such as silicon is impossible; however, it can be done on the nanoscopic level with third generation cells. This is important because if this absorbance band can be expanded, then the atoms can absorb much more energy then they have been, allowing for an increase in efficiency. A professor in Physical Chemistry at UNC Charlotte, Marcus Jones, has been spending his time doing just this, and is, especially this year, beginning to make progress. America is waking up, Jones said when asked about the future of solar energy in the United States, There is an infinite amount of energy available, but we have to rethink how we create it. He means that the grid system of energy that we have today needs to be replaced with some type of smaller solar energy system in each household. The problem is with something called the Shockley-Queisser Limit, which limits how much energy a cell can absorb, no matter how much it seems to be improved (Jones). This is where his work comes in with third generation cells. With the ability to expand the absorbance of a certain material on a nanoscopic level, Jones believes the Limit can be circumvented.

This model, used by Jones, shows how the third generation cells can pass the Shockley-Queisser Limit, and get into extremely cost effective zones such as 10cents/kWh at 50% efficiency.

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It is going to take some time, however, as with all things, but Jones is a firm believer that it can be done. Solar energy, therefore, may not be the most current solution, but definitely will be a major player in renewable energy down the road since there is an infinite amount of energy that can be harnessed. A move to renewable energy will affect us all. From the top dollar oil companies, to the everyday American, we will all have an impact on moving toward a more sustainable world. The reality is that no one energy source will sustain us completely. For renewable energy to be effective, all of these different sources must be used in combination with each other, and in areas that are specifically beneficial to each type. Solar energy in areas that get a large amount of sunlight, wind turbines in the windy northwestern United States, geothermal in residential areas that need physically smaller systems, and so on. Today, wind seems to be the largest growing source of new energy, but with advances in solar energy on the horizon, it will not be far behind. I said it before and I will say it again. We have a problem, America. So what are we going to do?

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Works Cited Armstrong, Fraser. Energy...Beyond Oil. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print. Gipe, Paul. "Aerovironment's AVX 1000 Rooftop Turbines at Logan Airport." Wind-Works. N.p., 26 Sep 2008. Web. 5 Nov 2013. Jones, Marcus. Personal interview. 8 Nov. 2013. Liptak, Bela. "Chernobyl Did Not Need To Occur." CONTROL. CONTROL, 12 Jul 2009. Web. 5 Nov 2013. Mann, Charles. "No, Really: We're Going to Keep Burning Oil--and Lots of It." The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 14 May 2013. Web. 22 Oct 2013. Marston, Jim. "The Oil And Gas Industrys Assault On Renewable Energy." Environmental Defense Fund. Energy, 26 Apr 2013. Web. 5 Nov 2013.