The Curse of Global Warming - Term Paper Example

Sustainable solution Proposal Introduction Global warming has become one of the major environmental issues today. Global warming can not be considered as a natural disaster. It’s a man made disaster that has become a major issue of concern of human civilization at the present time. In the last twenty years scientific knowledge has led to the understanding that anthropogenic, human made actions were responsible for the changes on global climate. Those changes are a consequence of the emission and accumulation of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere. Human activities are increasing the natural levels of those gases, by emitting carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such coal, oil, and natural gas; methane and nitrous oxide produced by agricultural activities and changes in the use land use; and by some industrial gases that do not occur naturally but are long lived in the atmosphere. Emissions of poisonous gases from vehicles are also constantly polluting the air. In fact, a large proportion of harmful gases in the atmosphere are being emitted from the vehicles. With the development of civilization, the rate of transportation has also increased. Today, most of the vehicles are run by fossil fuels, like petrol, diesel, coal etc. the burning of these fuels emit hazardous gases in the atmosphere and enhances the risk of global warming. In order to protect the Universes from the curse of global warming, the immediate need is to reduce the emission of those gases that are responsible for global warming. In order to reduce emission level, the prime requirement is to discover alternative sources of energy other than fossil fuel. The vehicles, therefore also need to be run by the energy whose production does not need petrol, diesel or coal. Scientists are experimenting several alternatives to the traditional source of energy for the vehicles. Fuel cell cars seem to be an appropriate solution to the problem of global warming. Thus, this paper is going to look into the problem of global warming and fuel cell car as a solution to this problem. Hence the thesis statement for this paper can be written in the following way: Fuel cell cars can be a good sustainable solution to the problem of global warming. Literature review Global Warming is a man made disaster that has become a major issue of concern of human civilization at the present time. In the last twenty years scientific knowledge has led to the understanding that anthropogenic, human made actions were responsible for the changes on global climate. Those changes are a consequence of the emission and accumulation of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are the major air pollutants which are not only polluting the air, but also causing the atmospheric temperature to rise.   (The National Academies Press , p.1)   In this industrial age of human civilization, human activities are increasing the natural levels of those gases, by emitting carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such coal, oil, and natural gas; methane and nitrous oxide produced by agricultural activities and changes in the use of land; and by some industrial gases that are long lived in the atmosphere. If emissions continue to grow at the present levels, the concentration of carbon dioxide will double those from pre-industrial levels during this century. Continued increase in atmospheric temperature will make it difficult for human being to survive on this planet by destroying our environment. With increasing atmospheric temperature, polar ice will start to melt at a very high pace. It imposes a huge threat of loosing our land under sea water. Overtime, environmental conditions will also become non-conducive for production in agricultural and industrial sectors of our economies due to adverse climate change. Production of crops will fall drastically that will in turn affect industrial production as well. The economic systems will break down, that will bring in huge turmoil in our societies as well. Hence, to save this planet, the time has come to take appropriate measures for controlling global warming. (Schelling, p. 2-9) The main cause of global warming is regarded as the emission of hazardous gases from the vehicles. These gases mainly emit form the burning of fossil fuels that run the vehicles. In this progressive age of human civilization it would not be possible to make the vehicles stop from running. Thus it is necessary to search for alternative fuel sources or alternative technologies for running vehicles. In many literatures that talks about the problem of global warming and its remedies, fossil fuel has been appeared to be an appropriate alternative. (Schelling, p. 2-9; Lucas p.1 ) Fuel cell car is a new technological concept in the transport world. To protect environment various alternative sources are being discovered and tested. People have realized that fossil fuels are not the only efficient source of energy for running cars. Among various alternatives, hydrogen fuel cell cars is becoming a attractive options for the car manufacturers as it has been tested that vehicles run by hydrogen fuel cell do not emit any poisonous gases in the air. Several car making companies including Genral Motors, Honda, Toyota have announced their plan to bring fuel cell cars into the market in near future. Many of the companies have already tested these types of cars to check their efficiency level. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) Fuel cell cars have drawn wide attention from the Americans and the Europeans. The United States has already made huge investment on the production of fuel cell cars. A fuel cell car has a number of similarities with a car run by battery. In both of these types of cars, no internal combustion engine is required. In a fuel cell car, the fuel cells in which energy is stored in chemical form play the role of generating electrical energy from the energy stored in the chemicals. In this conversion process, water and heat are also created. The working of a fuel cell is quite similar to that of a battery except in one particular respect. The batteries are required to be recharged at regular interval, while fuel cells need no such research. The fuel cells will work as long as the supply of fuels to those cells continues. In most of the cases, particularly in case of cars, hydrogen is used as the fuel in the fuel cells. In a fuel cell, the energy generation process is dependent on a chemical process rather than on combustion, and hence the level of emissions is quite lower in case of fuel cells. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22; Natural Resources Defense Council p. 1) Discussion: From the earlier sections, it has become clear that the present paper is putting its focus on one of the major environmental problem of today, i.e. global warming. In order to deal with this huge problem that poses a threat to the survival of human civilization, it is necessary to consider a very well planned and effective solution. Various people have advocated for various types of solution. This paper has considered fuel cell cars as one of the most effective solutions. The earlier section has shown how various literatures have taken into account increasing popularity of fuel cell cars. However, most of them did not consider why this option stands out as a better option than other alternatives. This paper will analyze the pros and cons of fuel cell cars as a sustainable solution to global warming and will discuss why other options have been rejected. As mentioned earlier global warming is a serious issue to take into account as it is producing immense environmental and economical adverse effects. Unless, it is controlled effectively, the entire human civilization may extinguish in near future. However, before proposing a solution to this problem it is necessary to take into account its pros and cons and to compare them with the advantages and disadvantages of other alternatives. Fuel cell car has got wide attentions from the car makers because of a number of benefits that can be obtained from such an innovative car. These advantages are as follows: First, fuel cell cars, mainly those which use hydrogen as the fuel generate no harmful gases and hence in conventional terms the level of emission is zero. This happens because in case of these hydrogen fuel cell cars the only by-products that are emitted are water and heat. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) Second, energy efficiency level is quite high for these cars. According to some estimates the rate of emissions can be reduced by more than 20 percent if for the production of hydrogen renewable sources of energy are used in the place of fossil fuels. In U.K., the introduction of fuel cell cars is said to cut the emission of the hazardous nitrogen oxide as much as 70 percent. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) Third, the fuel cells used in these cars seems to be quite flexible in the sense that if a fuel reformer is placed within a car, then it can easily generate fuel from various sources including fossil fuels, fuels with alcohol base, different types of hydrogen compounds, and even from bio-mass. Although fuel cell cars seem to posses a number of advantages, it also has several dis-advantages. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) First, a major problem with hydrogen fuel cell cars is that although the process of energy generation results in quite low or zero emission, the production of hydrogen involves quite substation emission of green house gases as at present in most of the cases for the generation of hydrogen fossil fuels and nuclear power are used. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) Second, at present costs associated with the production of fuel cell cars are quite high as the production process is not enjoying the benefits of economies of scale as currently these cars are being produced in small quantities. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) Third, fossil fuel cars face the problem of appropriate storage for the hydrogen fuel. In case of conventional cars, petrol or diesel can be stored very easily as they are liquid in form and do not need very big container. But hydrogen is a gas and therefore large containers are needed to store while traveling. (Mench p. 9-12; Newton p. 20-22) However, all the disadvantages are not as difficult as to mitigate. In fact, most of the problems are related to technology and improvements on technologies can easily mitigate these problems. Scientists have already started to work on technological improvements in fuel cell cars and they are achieving success as well. Adding to these, when we compare the option of fuel cell car with other alternative solutions to global warming like use of bio-fuels, the policy of energy efficiency etc., it can be found that their disadvantages are quite serious and complicated and hence not easy to deal with. For example, in case of bio-fuels, the main problem is associated with its production. In order to produce bio-fuels a large amount of land is required and thus farmers are forced to stop producing foods and to produce combustible crops to manufacture bio-fuels. Thus bio-fuel is being produced at the expense of food production. Apart form it, bio-fuel production emits huge green house gases. Thus the future of bio-fuel is not very bright as a solution of global warming. On the other hand, in case of the policy of energy efficiency, it is hard to implement. Unless moral and social sense of people across the world get improved, it is not possible to save energy. In this age of human civilization when life is run by machines, it is quite hard to follow this energy efficiency policy. Thus these alternatives have been rejected in this paper as a solution to global warming. Although, fuel cells cars also attract various criticisms, all the problems associated with fuel cell cars can be dealt with quite easily. Conclusion: The current technique employed for the production of the fuel for the fuel cells is not environment friendly. But there also exists several options to produce hydrogen apart from using fossil fuels. For example, wind or water can be used or hydrogen extraction. What scientists need to invent is appropriate technique to extract hydrogen from non-polluting sources so that the production process does not involve any global warming emissions. If such techniques are devised in near future, then there will be a revolution in the transport system which will strengthen the ongoing fight against global warming and provide a sustainable solution to the problem. Reference: 1. The National Academies Press. THE OZONE DEPLETION PHENOMENON. 2009 Available at http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9042 (accessed on 15th April, 2011) 2. Schelling, Thomas. C. What Makes Greenhouse Sense? Time to Rethink the Kyoto Protocol. Foreign affairs, Vol 81(3):2-9. 2002. 3. Natural Resources Defense Council. Is Hydrogen The Solution? 2004. Available at http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/phydrofuel.asp [ accessed on 15th April 2011] 4. Lucas, Paul. Fuel cell cars - a guide. 2008. Available at http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/fuel-cell-cars.asp [ accessed on 15th April 2011] 5. Mench, Mathew. M. Fuel cell engines. John Wiley and Sons. 2008. 6. Newton, Peter. W. Transitions: Pathways Towards Sustainable Urban Development in Australia. Springer. 2008. Read More