Katelin's+Opinions

Energy is what the world revolves around. There are many different energy sources in use in today's world. The controversy is we have renewable and nonrenewable resources available to us. Unfortunately, we are slowly but surely running out of nonrenewable resources. So, in reaction to this, we must start thinking of alternative solutions to help keep our nonrenewable resources intact.

In the next two to five years, I don't believe that we are going to be making any major changes to the way we use our resources. We will obviously need to still be using gas. Since we rely on gas so much now, it will be hard to completely stop using it in the next several years. As humans, we don't realize what we have until its gone. We use some form of gas everyday of our lives. If we completely stopped using it, I believe, as Americans, we would be lost. Another resource we will probably continue to use in the coming years is wind energy. Wind energy is becoming a very reliable energy source because we will never run out of wind energy. In addition, to create wind energy we need to create windmills. Windmills will produce new job opportunities; so as we help the environment, we are also boosting our economy. Finally, the most important thing we can apply to our daily lifestyle is conservation. Conservation is free, easy, and helps both you and the environment in the long run. Conservation can be as easy as turning the water off when you are brushing your teeth. You can also recycle. Recycling reuses things like plastics, paper, metal, glass, and aluminum. These are some options we have to further keep our Earth a safe environment.

Although we will not have any significant changes in the near future, we will certainly have to prepare for major changes in the next two to five decades. In the future, we will need to rely on things such as tidal energy, solar energy, and cogeneration. Tidal energy is a simple way to consume energy. It is reliable, non polluting, and effective. The cost of tidal energy is also looking to drop in the next few years. The only negative effects tidal energy would have on us is that it would have unpredictable environment and possibly have a marine safety issue. Another energy source that will most likely become popular is solar energy. Solar energy will give off no pollution and will actually in return give us electricity. It will also make us less dependent on our decreasing amount of fossil fuels. The negative effects would be that it costs a lot to install the panels. The panels are what absorbs the sunlight and energy. Also, it could only be done in the daylight and it would depend a lot on the weather. Lastly, we could rely more on cogeneration. Cogeneration is the utilization of the normally wasted heat energy produced by a power plant or industrial process. Cogeneration seems to be on the "back burner" in development over the past few years. The main positive to using this energy source is that it will recycle energy that we waste. In a two to five year process, this would not be very reasonable. But, overtime it would be very successful and reliable.  In conclusion, we have several opportunities ahead of us to conserve our nonrenewable resources. It just depends on us to make sure that we take care of where we live. We need to accept the fact that we are the generation to make a change of a lifetime. So are you up for the challenge?