President Obama's stance

President Obama plans to give hybrid and electric car users a $7,000 tax credit for the fact that they use alternative modes of transportation. He wants to have research in to the option of creating ethanol out of plant waste not just out of corn. He also believes that the development of these alternative fuels and energy sources will provide more jobs for Americans. The jobs provided could not be shipped over seas to the leading oil producing countries that are not necessarily our friends. These counties include, but are not limited to: Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Steven Chu's stance

Dr. Chu seems to take a stance that raising the price of gas will reduce the amount American consumers use there by leaving more gas for future generations. He also wants to raise the tax on gas to fund government research into alternative fuels and energy sources. He believes that efficient use of gas is the number one way to reduce our need for gas. Dr. Chu supports the idea of biofuels as the main long term solution to the gas dependency problem.


He is focusing on cleaning up nuclear waste that has contaminated some nuclear weapon plants, since the Cold War, nuclear weapon development, and basic sciences which is the main mission of the federal Department of Energy, which Dr. Chu is Head Secretary of.

Explaination of Concept map

The main concept is Energy Sustainability. There are four major categories: Renewable energy sources, Non-renewable energy sources, Green House Gases, and Energy Users. Each of the four categories are split up in to sub-topics.

Energy Concept Map

Analysis of Complex Systems

A. Trends & Patterns:

• The majority of items (over use of resources, wasted energy, food availability, processing/ packaging, recycling, and composting) lead back to "food intake".
• A vast majority of items (non renewable sources: coal, natural gas, petroleum, propane)lead back to "Green House Gases".

B. Time Delays:

• Recycling- The substances which are being recycled will not be tranformed into their recycled state imidiatly, it takes time and energy to complete the process.
• Population- When you add to the gene pool with your offspring they do not immeditly become power crazed energy wasters, they start out young and innocent.
• Transportation- Currently we are using non renewable resources that will cause us in future times to be rushed into using renewable resources as our only option.

C. Feedback Loops:

• Food intake- The more food we eat, the more packeging is needed which then leads into more waste that needs to be recycled. The processing of the food leads to wasted energy.
• Population- More population leads to more food intake, leading to more waste, more packeging, more wasted energy.

D. Leverage Points:

• Life Expectancy- If people were to die sooner in life they would use less energy, processing, polution, food intake, packeging, and other unfor seen circustances.
• Energy Efficiency- Energy efficiency goes down wasted energy goes up.

Resources for Information

Resources that would be used to gather information would be The Worldwatch Institute which delivers the insights and ideas that encourage people to create an environmentally sustainable society that meets human needs. Also the Renewable Energy Policy Project, ERPP, which contains information about Building A Renewable Energy Industry. The website Repower America is also a great source to gather information. Lastly, on the website “source guides” the article, The Source for Renewable Energy.

Bibliography

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0920630.html
http://worldpopulationbalance.org/pop/energy/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gavin-newsom/power-america-with-ocean_b_187902.html
http://www.our-energy.com
http://www.worldwatch.org/
http://www.repp.org/
http://www.repoweramerica.org/

Understanding the Problem

The availability of non renewable sources is decreasing with time and the damage is increasing. Fossil fuels are the main source of energy and all of which are non renewable. They provide 80% of global energy use and the demand is growing at a rate of about 2% per year. Fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and in the last 150 years its concentration has grown 28%. (See graph)






Our global commercial energy consumption is now over 10 GIGA TONES OF OIL, which is roughly equivalent to the work capacity of 20 human slaves for every person on the planet.



The main problems of using non renewable sources:

• With time it is going to run out, in the near future as we use so much and it's still increasing!
• The emissions of fossil fuels are overwhelming our ecosystems capacity to absorb them, causing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. This then leads to climate change.
• Negatively impacting the out living enviroment. The total amount of energy use is so great that it has the potential to disrupt global ecosystems.

Creating an exact statement of the problem

The problem is the fact that the United States is using more energy than can be produced.We(the US) is using more energy than the next five top energy consuming countries put together. India has a larger population than that of the U.S. and they use much less energy.

Possible Solutions

Solutions

A possible solution the government is reasearching is creating 1000's of new jobs which will lower all of the job searching during this finacial breakdown. With all of these jobs the solution calls for using wind, wave, tidal, adn current power. This will help our nation cut back on our dependence on forein oil in other countrys. Also we can continue to give tax breaks to oil companies that pollute our oceans and keep us locked in a carbon filled world. We are using resources from all over the world. There are several ways you and your house hold can save energy everyday by useing public transport buses, trains, and subways. You can alaso buy smaller and environment friendly cars. Also turn off electronic devices that you are not using such as Computer, TV's, and other household items. And when shopping for new electronics, look at products with low energy use (labeled with A++, A+, A, B).

Wind energy is another idea to conserve energy to cut down on non renewable sources. Wind energy started in the 1980's when it would cost 40 cents per kilowatt hour, whic compared to the current price of about 4 to 6 cents, is about ten times the price.

Do We Have A Problem

1. Yes, we have a problem, we, as a country, are using 93.3% of non-renewable resources. Only one out of the four uses for these resources is not avalible via renewable resources. If we end up using all of the resouces that are non renewable then we will have to learn how to live using our other resources. But we should focus on those more now so we are not stuck in years to come learning how to use them.

Consumers:
Country
Percent of World Energy Consumed
United States:
21%
China:
16%
Russia:
6%
Japan:
5%
India:
4%
Germany:
3%

Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy.