Renewable Energy Persuasive Essay Example

The problem with the world continuing to use oil as a major source of energy is that we are using energy that is limited, and it is getting harder to mine for this oil. 2021 alone, “The United States consumed an average of about 19.78 million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about 7.22 billion barrels of petroleum. This was an increase of about 1.6 million barrels per day overconsumption in 2020.” (EIA). The United States alone is only 4 percent of the world, and we use 20 million barrels a day. We are using a natural resource that we cannot continue to rely on forever. My position is that we need to take our natural resources such as wind, water and solar energy and create easier and affordable ways to support our environment and country as our country’s ozone layer is exhausted by the day. As we burn our fossil fuels, we have been heating our earth quicker than ever from the release of carbon monoxide, as told in Grosses article “Unfortunately, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the most consequential greenhouse gas, has steadily climbed at the same time, along with the global average temperature” (Gross). The world is still using fossil fuels for most of the electricity generation, as we are “roughly 63% of coal” and fossil fuels are still generating “64 percent of today’s global supply”. (Gross) 

I have decided that my views on the use of natural resources forever would be a mistake for our future self and future children. This stems from my teenage years and hearing that we cannot keep depleting our natural resources forever. The solar, wind, or hydroelectric methods for conserving energy are a renewable variable that we need to use, so we can levy off our erratic demand of power from oil. From Rentar's article we have around fifty years of oil left they told, “In 2014, a major corporation published a finding with evidence that the world only has 50 years of oil left, 53 at the time.” (Rentar). A consumer price to obtain a barrel of oil in 1998 was worth around ten dollars and “now it costs over $135” (Rentar). One point people reach out to get solar energy is the return on income is great, when you have good sunlight in your area, you will capture up to 47 % of the captured sunlight into electricity- by comparison, most commercially available modules convert less than 20%. On top of that phenomenal incentive, the cost per panel has dropped a ton as energy.gov states “installation is less than three a watt; a whopping 65 percent decrease from $8.50 per watt 10 years ago” (Energy.gov) If the world continues to use only fossil fuels and take a non-aggressive approach to renewable sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric like are in the 2020s we might have a chance if another oil discovery shows up. With not using renewable sources, we could also have more energy independence and continue to harness energy cheaply as we have used fossil fuels for so long, we have been able to keep the price flat. According to customer affairs, the efficiency rates are around between only “15 to 22 percent for solar and 20 to 40 percent for fossil fuels” (Parkman).  

My position is to use fossil fuels, when necessary, but turn revenue created from selling those fuels and make a more substantial contribution to renewable energy, so in turn we could burn less of a resource that could be extinct in the next 100 years. The implications from using renewable energy are expensive as they are not as dense as oil to create energy and cost more to generate, but with more technology, time and return of income I believe we can create a safer and much more reliable earth for our decedents. The applications of renewable energy are expensive, and known to be inconsistent with weather conditions, but the outcome of using energy like solar harnesses something we are already receiving and water one of the oldest methods of capturing energy, is a pinnacle of renewable energy. We will be crippled if the world decides in the next few decades to not reverse our energy use and start converting to electricity from renewable sources.