Sustainable Energy Resourses vs. Climate Change Essay

Sustainable Energy Resourses vs. Climate Change - Essay Example 3. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Solar, Wind, Hydropower, and Geothermal Energy over Fossil Fuels Because of environment, health, long-term cost efficiency and other practical reasons, generating electricity out of the wind turbine, hydroelectric power plant, geothermal energy, and solar energy can be more advantageous as compared to the use of fossil fuels. When using either fossil fuels or biomass combustion, the Science Daily reported that approximately 20% of the energy produced is actually wasted as heat. Based on this context, fossil fuels and biomass are inefficient sources of electricity (â€Å"Shifting the world to 100 percent clean renewable energy as early as 2030†). Depending on the availability of renewable energy resources, the use of the wind turbine, hydroelectric power plant, geothermal energy, and solar energy system can provide us with more economic advantages since the overall supply of energy will be greater than our daily consumption needs ( "Shifting the world to 100 percent clean renewable energy as early as 2030†). Furthermore, the use of these renewable energy resources can provide us with long-term ready supply of energy without the possibility of causing serious damages to our health and environment. Among the available sources of renewable energy, the solar system is considered a very good source of electricity since the process of generating electricity from the sun can provide us with 30 times more than the total electricity that we actually need to run the entire U.S. economy (â€Å"Shifting the world to 100 percent clean renewable energy as early as 2030†). On the other hand, wind turbines are also considered as another powerful source of electricity since the energy generated from the wind... It can be derived from the report and the previous research conducted on the topic that a sustainable community is attainable provided that there is a balance between the economy, the society and the environment. During the third quarter of 2011, The Economist reported that â€Å"the global population is likely to reach 7 billion†. Due to the growing population of human beings around the world, increased in human activities could alter the climate condition of our natural environment. As a common knowledge, the existing energy sources in the United States are vital to the economic development and progress. In fact, a significant increase on the demand for energy would mean the need to increase the energy supply coming from different sources of energy. In response to the increasing demand for energy resources, the United States government is spending approximately US$500 billion each year in the development of energy sources alone. With the presence of sufficient energy supply, the local manufacturers will be able to produce consumer good items to meet the increasing local and international demand. For this reason, the U.S. Department of Energy has been relying over the use of different energy sources including: bioenergy, coal, electric power, fossil fuels, fusion, geothermal, hydrogen, hydropower, natural gas, nuclear, oil, solar and wind energy. The negative long-term socio-economic, environmental, and health benefits associated with the use of fossil fuel is more than the challenges associated with the use of renewable energy resources.