Sustainable Solutions

Who doesn’t hate paying for energy? Life takes energy; energy to power our home; energy to power our country's infrastructures; energy to power our vehicles; energy to cook our food… The list is endless!! The fact that our energy demands are always expanding is a bit of a dilemma in itself, but the real problem is how we plan on meeting these growing demands.

Ever since the beginning of the Industrial revolution, we have been obsessed with fossil fuels. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy burning things just as much as the next guy (man has always had a thing for fire), but if it’s anything other than a bonfire… it’s outdated and inefficient. Over 150 years has passed since the end of the revolution, the way we do energy has been unchanged compared to other technology advances. Burning fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal, and different natural gases, are finite resources that cause the most long term damage to our environment (some fuels do more damage than others). I’m not saying that we need to totally shut down our current infrastructure and make a chaotic change, but it’s time that we put more attention towards renewable resources.

So why should we make a change towards renewable energy? I could list all sorts of different reasons and facts that support a shift towards sustainable energy, but I’m just going to cover the three big ones in today’s post.

Sustainability

The Sun provides approximately 100 watts per square foot or 27,878,400 watts per square mile.
This is equivalent to 274,000,000 gigawatt years or 8.2 million Quads of Btu energy per year.  The entire human race uses, in all forms, about 505 Quads per year, so if collected well, gives us relatively 15,000 times our present day needs (Gathered from the U.S. Energy Information Administration). And that’s just one example of a renewable energy potential. Will we ever be able to collect all that energy? Not in a million years. The sun isn’t always shining across the globe, due to cloud cover (Just ask the residence of Seattle Washington), but the point is that we have potential.

We have access to several different forms of renewable energy, solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, that we will never run out of. The amount of energy we have access to be limitless. At the moment, we may not be able to acquire the renewable energy for 100% of our demands, but until we begin to become self-invested and dedicated to a renewable lifestyle, then we never will.

Clean

Smog in China from cars, power plants and factories

When you take combustion out of the equation, we can see through the smog. Energy from the different renewable creates possibly zero emissions and little waste/byproducts. There is no need to filter any fumes, or dispose of any radioactive/poisonous materials. We can greatly reduce our carbon foot print by reducing our dependence of fossil fuels. There is also less problems in the system as we acquire the sustainable power.

How many people have died from problems with a windmill or solar panel? Maybe we just aren’t exposed to those deaths or statistics, but the point is that there is less risk in renewable energy. Who here can recall japans recent nuclear meltdown? How about the oil spill in the gulf? Horrible disasters, if I do say so myself. People can point the finger at poor planning and irresponsibility for these disasters, but in the end I it’s just human nature. People make mistakes. People get greedy and cut corners on safety to save a few extra dollars. There have been other problems in the past, and there will be more in the future, but problems such as these simply don’t happen with renewable energy. Nonexistent emissions+ nonexistent byproducts= clean and sustainable energy.

Zero Foreign dependence

By collecting energy/fuel from local and renewable sources, we become less reliant on foreign fossil fuels.  I could get into detail about oil imports, but we all know about that crippling dependence. I’m sure it is important to have healthy relationships with foreign countries, and that imports has a part in that, but we have these untapped resources that we could be using to better our future.  Go for a drive, and there is a good chance that you will see several bumper stickers reading “Buy Local” or “Buy American”, our fuel and energy resources shouldn’t be any different.

Know and Doing

What is taking us so long on making progress towards a more sustainable future? Do people enjoy paying at the pump? Have we grown accustomed to city smog? People don’t like change. America needs to be more committed if any change is going to take place. Not only that, but too many people have their pockets lined with oil and coal dollars. Lobbyists in the white house can cause major problems when making change and progress. If we are going to make progress, we need to be stronger and yell loader than the oil barons.

Thanks for taking the initial step in the right direction by learning and reading about our future and our impact on the world. For more information about energy facts and ways to make our own positive impact, check out my Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter page, and maybe even take part in the conversations. You never know whose life and views you might change by adding to our change.

http://www.facebook.com/FullCircleLifestyles

http://pinterest.com/fullcirclelifes/

https://twitter.com/#!/fullcirclelifes

~Daniel