The Global Energy Crisis - How Does it Affect You?
I'm sure you have heard through television, magazines, and other forms of media about how the world is about to face a global energy crisis.
Some people, like the politician and author Al Gore, have been speaking about the limited energy availability for years, and they have been recognized by the Noble Peace committee for trying to make people more aware of the problem.
Have you ever wondered if what Mr.
Gore and his fellow politicians are talking about is of any importance to you? After all, you know you can't stop global warming or make the polar ice caps re freeze on your own, can you? Just because you can't change how everyone else acts to conserve our current fossils fuels doesn't mean the global energy crisis won't affect you.
It most certainly does and will.
The biggest factor in the crisis is the worlds dependence on oil and oil based products.
We only have a limited amount of oil in the earth and it takes millions of years to form, but with our world population size and increasing demand from developing nations we are using this source of energy at a alarming rate.
The demand for crude oil is so high right now that it has been estimated that we may run out of oil in the next 100 - 125 years if we keep using it at this pace.
Can you imagine living without oil? We use it for many things.
Gasoline, heating oil, asphalt for our roads, insecticides, and even perfumes are all based in some part on crude oil.
That's why it is important that we discover and implement alternative energy sources now before our oil sources are gone.
Because oil is in such high demand to make products for consumers the price keeps rising so this definitely affects everyone.
Researchers have been looking for alternatives to oil based gasoline as the prices keep going higher year after year.
Ethanol, an alcohol based fuel from plant crops that is blended with gasoline, is already in use in many areas around the country.
But there are some problems with ethanol that you will have to deal with.
First of all, older cars can't use it without having their engines damaged so as ethanol gets more widely distributed it may be hard and expensive to find gasoline with no ethanol in it.
You might have to buy a new car that accepts flex fuels sooner than you want.
Unlike Brazil and and some other countries, in the United States we use almost nothing but corn based ethanol, which has a hidden surprise that not many people think about.
Since we are using a good portion of the corn that used to be grown for food as fuel the corn prices have increased.
Prices haven't become unreasonable yet but I'm sure you've noticed that your paying much more now for ears of corn in the grocery store than you used to.
This should give you an idea of the small and not so small ways that you will be affected by the way we are using our resources on our planet.
There are only so much fossil fuel sources on our planet and it is limited and not a renewable energy resource so we need to conserve what little is left for future generations.
Some people, like the politician and author Al Gore, have been speaking about the limited energy availability for years, and they have been recognized by the Noble Peace committee for trying to make people more aware of the problem.
Have you ever wondered if what Mr.
Gore and his fellow politicians are talking about is of any importance to you? After all, you know you can't stop global warming or make the polar ice caps re freeze on your own, can you? Just because you can't change how everyone else acts to conserve our current fossils fuels doesn't mean the global energy crisis won't affect you.
It most certainly does and will.
The biggest factor in the crisis is the worlds dependence on oil and oil based products.
We only have a limited amount of oil in the earth and it takes millions of years to form, but with our world population size and increasing demand from developing nations we are using this source of energy at a alarming rate.
The demand for crude oil is so high right now that it has been estimated that we may run out of oil in the next 100 - 125 years if we keep using it at this pace.
Can you imagine living without oil? We use it for many things.
Gasoline, heating oil, asphalt for our roads, insecticides, and even perfumes are all based in some part on crude oil.
That's why it is important that we discover and implement alternative energy sources now before our oil sources are gone.
Because oil is in such high demand to make products for consumers the price keeps rising so this definitely affects everyone.
Researchers have been looking for alternatives to oil based gasoline as the prices keep going higher year after year.
Ethanol, an alcohol based fuel from plant crops that is blended with gasoline, is already in use in many areas around the country.
But there are some problems with ethanol that you will have to deal with.
First of all, older cars can't use it without having their engines damaged so as ethanol gets more widely distributed it may be hard and expensive to find gasoline with no ethanol in it.
You might have to buy a new car that accepts flex fuels sooner than you want.
Unlike Brazil and and some other countries, in the United States we use almost nothing but corn based ethanol, which has a hidden surprise that not many people think about.
Since we are using a good portion of the corn that used to be grown for food as fuel the corn prices have increased.
Prices haven't become unreasonable yet but I'm sure you've noticed that your paying much more now for ears of corn in the grocery store than you used to.
This should give you an idea of the small and not so small ways that you will be affected by the way we are using our resources on our planet.
There are only so much fossil fuel sources on our planet and it is limited and not a renewable energy resource so we need to conserve what little is left for future generations.
Source...