Chautauqua County Energy Conference Scholarship Essay by Delcie Kestner > Chautauqua Region Community Foundation

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Chautauqua County Energy Conference Scholarship Essay by Delcie Kestner
Tuesday, November 02, 2010

What Should Power This In 2020?

by Delcie Kestner - 2^nd prize recipient

For longer than there have been gasoline-fueled vehicles and incandescent lights, people with the power to control the conditions that multitudes of others are forced to contend with have had mixed motives behind the decisions that they make. The decisions of these powerful people are often called self-serving, meant only to ease burdens on an elite class or a special interest group. However, in many situations, it is actually in the best interest of those in power to look beyond a solution that will fulfill its own needs instantaneously. Such is the case in the issue of America's search for efficient, affordable, and environmentally safe energy sources.

Whether an individual is in support of up-and-coming fuels like ethanol and wind power or is partial to traditional fuels such as oil, it can be agreed that the choice of any source will have repercussions reaching far into the future. With the invention of the automobile, Americans saw an innovative method of transportation come into the world. Today, we are seeing cars as a costly necessity. Deeply rooted in our nation's dependence on cars is our need to import, or in some way produce, their fuel, beginning as a technological advance over a hundred years ago, the car and the consequences of its dominance in our modem lives has gone as far as becoming a motivating factor behind war. When a decision is made in order for current demand to be met, provisions have needed to be made for the future effects the choice will inevitably have.

From the government funding recently devoted to development of the alternative fuel industry to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, there is evidence that the consequences of our power sources used through the past centuries are cause for alarm. At this time, our country does not have the ability to seek out the most inexpensive power source and build the energy industry around it. We must take into consideration efficiency, availability, environmental impact, and, as always, cost.

Truthfully, nearly all sources of energy in use today can be produced or found within the United States. Crops can be grown for the production of ethanol; hydroelectric and wind turbines can produce power in various locations throughout the country; oil is even available in specific regions. Economically speaking, power sources inside of our borders bring benefits which would be noticed especially in the current economic downturn, and would reduce the motivation to go to war over foreign oil supply. If sources of fuel were sought out solely for the purpose of aiding our economy, coal could definitely fulfill requirements. Seeing as the United States has control of land with more coal on it than nearly any other nation, coal could seem a reasonable choice for a main fuel source. As those living in poverty and lacking education suffer in the current job market, work in the coal mining field would be especially convenient, seeing as much of America's coal can be found in the impoverished Appalacliian Mountain region. Unfortunately, the reasons for the reduction of coal mining as it is today are many. Mining has been shown to cause damage to ecosystems in cases of mountaintops being removed completely for access to coal, water becoming tainted in the mining process, etc. Also, conditions for the coal miners themselves have always been far from healthy. Yet another factor that turns us against coal power is the pollution caused in the burning of it. For the sake of the American economy, coal power sources should be pursued in the future, but not without provisions for environmental worker protection.

Coal has been used much as an energy source by the United States, historically speaking. We have, over time, devised increasingly effective methods of mining, which could make turning back to coal power simpler than moving forward. To make a genuinely new energy source worth investment, it would need to show cost-effectiveness, availability, and, of course, compatibility with the natural world, solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power show all four of these sought-after factors to a certain extent, but one in particular has two distinct advantages: effectiveness in nearly every location and availability in unlimited quantities. Obviously, the wind does not blow enough to warrant construction of a windmill in many regions, and not everywhere is there a body of water capable of turning a turbine. Even in places with the wind speed to make construction of a windmill worthwhile, wind will not be in endless supply, and neither with geothermal energy. However, at one time or another, every part of the planet Earth receives sunlight. Of course, some areas receive much more that other's. In America, one such region is the southwestern deserts. Much of this land is open, free of buildings and general human activity. Solar power technologies can be, and are being used to capture energy with photovoltaic cells and solar thermal technology here. Overuse of the deserts for energy capture is still a potential danger to their wildlife, which could become an issue had the desert been named as an ideal location for a different type of power. In the case of solar power, though, the desert setting is not a necessity. Energy from the sun can be captured everywhere in America.

As with any of these relatively new technologies, construction of the facilities to harness energy is likely to be costly. That is a reason why, once again, well-established energy sources tend to gain more trust. Currently, sources like solar easily fall short of the efficiency of those like gasoline. Still, the fact that a square of photovoltaic panels 100-by-100 square miles is capable of powering the entire country, not to mention the fact that the sun's energy is totally free, make this particular power source worth America's time and money. If, by the year 2020, coal were healthier to use, solar more developed and less expensive, and cars adapted to operate using one or both, the use of these technological advancements to fuel our economy and our houses in a way that has a less negative impact on the environment that ever before would easily be the more sensible option.

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