Breaking the Habit
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June 10, 2010 • Jackson Sump
Filed under Opinion
With the oil spill from the past few months and the coalmine catastrophe before that; there has never been a better time to break our habit of using oil and coal as energy sources. With viable ideas for clean energy like wind and solar energy, there is a legitimate question to be asked: why are we still using harmful energy sources like coal and oil?
Oil has been used as a primary source of energy since the industrial revolution. This has caused us to become fully dependent on oil, which, up until the 1950s, could only be supplied by domestic companies. However, with the creation of the automobile and highways, demand has outweighed supply. Now we rely on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and buying oil from countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. If another oil rig were to explode or Saudi Arabia were to decide they no longer felt like selling oil to us, we would be in a tight squeeze from an energy stand point.
What also has to be pointed out is not only how expensive unclean energy is from a financial perspective, but also from a living aspect. Oilrigs and coalmines not only produce dirty energy, which hurts our environment, but it also destroys its surrounding ecosystem. This destruction of ecosystems brings back recollection of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 where otters and birds covered in oil being photographed. However, this recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico will kill of several species and plunder a billion dollar fishing industry. Also, the spill is pumping out approximately 5,000 barrels of oil a day, which will make oil far more expensive. Thus, the Gulf spill not only kills our ecosystem, but also hurts our economy.
There are two legitimate sources of clean energy that we should invest in as a nation: Wind and Solar energy. Wind energy has been proved a great source of energy as seen by the Cape Wing project in the Nantucket Sound. The Cape Wind project has created several new state jobs in creating this wind farm and it has created a clean and stable energy industry. Since it became operational last year it has produced over 11 million Metric Watt Hours (hours of electricity used). Therefore, if we were to set up wind farms both off the east coast, and off the Rocky Mountains we could suffice energy wise. However, if you include the vast amount of desert that could be used for solar panel farms, we could go back to consuming as much energy as we want, without destroying the environment. Also, this would save money because instead of paying to drill and install oilrigs, we could install wind farms and solar panels. Also, if we could innovate and invest in cars like the Chevrolet Volt we could be completely off the oil habit. Therefore, it is not only important for the oil habit to be broken from an environmental standpoint, but also from a financial standpoint as well.
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