Review paper on three scientific articles - Essay Example

My 27 November 2006 Reducing Carbon Emissions This paper reviews three articles that discuss different aspects of how to reduce carbon emissions which are causing the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The articles focus on carbon emissions from the transportation sector; reducing carbon emissions in "wedges" of 1 billion tons a year; and the use of renewable energy. The article "Fueling Our Transportation Future" (Heywood 60) examines four ways to lower dependence on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

These four options are: improving vehicle technology, reducing vehicle size, developing different fuels, and changing the way vehicles are used. In the short term, improving vehicle technology could reduce petroleum consumption by one third; reducing vehicle size could level off the 2% petroleum consumption annual growth rate, but it would take 20 years. In the long term, alternative fuels and new propulsion systems for hydrogen and electrical-powered cars may be developed; however, alternative fuels such as ethanol may have large environmental impacts, and hydrogen cars will require further advances in technology.

The fourth option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, changing the way vehicles are used, may include designing specific urban-use vehicles with improved gas efficiency. The article "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check" (Socolow & Pacala 50) explores ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions using available technologies. The authors state that the danger zone, in which irreversible climate changes take place, probably lies where the atmosphere has double the amount of carbon that it had before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

The article considers seven different "wedges" of the stabilization triangle (created from the difference in graphs of the carbon emission rates staying the same, and the emission rate leveling off in 50 years); each wedge represents lowering the carbon emission rate by 1 billion tons a year 50 years from now. For example, a wedge can be accomplished by not building 700 coal-fired power plants or by equipping 800 coal plants to capture and store carbon dioxide; two wedges can be accomplished by cutting buildings electricity use in half.

Policies of setting a cost of $100-200 per ton of carbon emissions may help to yield seven wedges, but further policies may be needed, for instance, to encourage commercialization of renewable energy technologies and to prevent construction of high-carbon emissions plants. The article "The Rise of Renewable Energy" (Kammen 84) focuses on the development of solar cells, wind turbines, and biofuels such as ethanol. The article argues that energy efficiency increases will not stop rising carbon emissions; that renewable energy must be used, and policy must support it.

According to Kammen, solar power has the potential to provide 5,000 times the current global energy need; wind farms have the potential to create three times the energy currently generated in the United States. The main challenge to solar photovoltaics is the cost of solar panels. Solar-thermal systems, such as those using sunlight to drive a Stirling engine also have a high cost, but these costs are expected to come down with advances in manufacturing and mass production. Challenges to wind farms include the affect on landscape views; growth of wind farms are helped by U.S. tax credits.

Biofuels such as corn-based ethanol carry an environmental cost of using fertilizers, but cellulosic ethanol could cut greenhouse gases by 90%. Another technology being investigated is green diesel, which emits virtually no greenhouse gases. There is a need for increased government and private-sector funding of research and development into these renewable energies on the scale of the Manhattan and Apollo projects, in order to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts. These articles contributes to general scientific knowledge by educating the public about the importance of the consumer choices they make, such as buying smaller cars.

In addition, the articles provide a glimpse of possible changes that will occur in transportation in the near future. For scientists and policy makers, these articles point the way toward the need for technological advances in areas such as hydrogen fuel cells, which could virtually eliminate greenhouse gases.Works CitedHeywood, John B. "Fueling Our Transportation Future." Scientific American 295.3 (Sep. 2006) 60-63.Socolow, Robert H. & Pacala, Stephen W. "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check." Scientific American 295.3 (Sep. 2006) 50-57.

Kammen, Daniel H. " The Rise of Renewable Energy." Scientific American 295.3 (Sep 2006) 84-93.