Keeping the Lights On the Tanks Full - Essay Example

This value shows that the current generation highly depends on crude oil and that life would be almost impossible if the use of crude oil products is stopped. Is this the case? This paper looks at a variety of options that we can use as a substitute to the use of oil. Before we take a look into this topic it is good to ask a very simple question, “can there be any positive effect on the alternative change of using crude oil products as our main source of energy or can it just worsen the situation?

” Taking a walk around my neighborhood, I noticed that there are so many oil refineries. The one question that I asked myself is the cost that it takes the oil manufactures to erect and maintain such large industries. From the information that I collected, it is estimated that it cost over $20 million to erect an oil refinery site and even more to maintain it. Is it not an obvious fact that all these are transferred to the consumer and not the oil manufactures? It means that all these costs are incorporated into the prices of the oil and the consumer is forced to pay for it.

This is just a simple example of how expensive oil is to the common man (Cothran 54). If an alternative could be made such that the source of energy does not have to depend on large refineries such as the ones set aside for the oil refinery then in turn we would reduce the prices of energy tremendously. For example let’s take a look at someone using a generator to provide electric energy to his family and another using solar energy. The one using solar energy will have to use just a few dollars for installation while the other would have to be buying diesel like every day.

This shows that crude oil products are expensive and there are other sources of energy such as solar energy that are less expensive and that can provide us with more energy as compared to the crude oil energy (Behrens 78). Never has it ever been recorded that people fright for cooking oil that is made from natural vegetables. However from the movie it is also evident that oil cost us a lot of lives to import and export. Take a look at the bombing of the twin towers (Fuel). This is just an example of how much pain we aver to go in order to maintain the oil energy that flows into our market.

We have to do a lot of things in order to get oil, we have to create enemies and at the same time use force and even soldiers in order to get and maintain the oil that we use. If we didn’t depend on oil then there would be no enmity between the US and Iraq or any Arabian country. However due to our dependency on oil we have to get exposed to terrorists and at the same time have our people killed as we kill others as well so that we can maintain our energy at all times. If we used bio diesel instead of the regular diesel, then there would be no fight for energy as every nation would be able to produce its energy.

This means that bio-diesel apart from being cheap and readily available will bring more peace to the world as compared to the fights that are seen by oil and the lots of lives that we have to lose because of the fights for oil energy (Behrens 78). If we used clean coal as our source of energy then there would be less pollution to our environment. Before the world was a better place to live in. people could swim anywhere, and eat most of the fish that comes from almost all the waters.