ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES

Alternative Energy Sources

Abstract

De-carbonizing the world economy is an issue that grows large and rapidly every day. The world's dependence on oil has created a monopoly for a resource that is scarce, non-renewable, polluting and more expensive for its users every day. In the United States the dependency on oil means having to buy it from foreign countries at prices that are always changing. If left unresolved America's oil addiction will in the long run not only deteriorate the planet's atmosphere and ecosystems but will also create an economic meltdown much worse than the one being experienced today. Since there is no other resource to power our vehicles the country would go into a state of crisis: Wall Street enters in a stage of panic and all stock prices drop, the agricultural economy would take a huge hit and food prices would rise exponentially, the middle and lower class citizens which account for 95% of the U.S. population would create a state of chaos. Eventually the U.S. government would resort to invade oil producing countries in a final stroke of desperation, an event that arguably has already been put in motion.

As a solution to this problem and to avoid the situation getting much worse different sources of energy must be put into use; fuels that are renewable or exist in abundance, cost-efficient and bio-degradable. Research has already produced fuels that are currently available for vehicles such as biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, propane, natural gas, methanol and electricity. There are several more fuels being developed and tested by private companies and universities all over the world. The use of these new fuels would forever eliminate environmental problems associated with the burning of fossil fuels.

Alternative Energy Sources

Introduction

Ethanol is derived from several sources. Food products such as corn, wheat, sugar cane, and rice are ...