The Solution to the Aforementioned Problem - Research Paper Example

White Paper On Environmental Friendly Cars White Paper On Environmental Friendly Cars Movement is a vital organ of human life and body motion defines it. Throughout the continuity of life man has used various means to travel. In the earliest years of life man travelled on foot for long distances. This proved to be effective for some years, but with evolution of life, the need for sophisticated means for transportation was felt and as it is rightly said: “Necessity is the mother of invention”, and so came the wooden wheel in the late Neolithic era. This begot the spark of human invention. Thence animals were used to carry charts and carts. As life kept going, different inventions took birth that enraptured the world. As a consequence, in the late 1600’s the first steam-powered vehicle was built. This led to the birth of a sequence of different generations of automobiles. Since the Industrial Revolution in 1760, fossil fuels replaced manual manufacturing processes, and in consequence of this car engines had started to be produced so as to run on the combustion of fossil fuels. For many years, even to this day, this has continued; initially the world had not known what unprecedented effect the excessive burning of fossil fuels would produce, but in the 1960’s a new discovery was made: this was Global Warming. This led environmentalists and scientists to thoroughly exhaust the subject and conclude that the excessive burning of fossil fuels is verily causing climate changes all over the world, and so it befitted the term ‘Global Warming’ (Sperling et al, 2009). In addition to this, it is also worth noting that fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and a time shall come when the world will run out of fossil fuels, or that only the powerful will exert their absolute control over it on their own whim. In effect, the world or the poor nations, in the future years, might have to revert to former methods of transportation; that are bicycles, horses, carts, etc. When this implication was realized by environmentalists yet again, scientists again dove down and exhausted every source through which they could determine how to endure fuel shortages and still have automobiles. This has led to a breakthrough invention that can completely solve this problem. In reality the use of fuel-powered cars has never been easy for the general population. Only the wealthy have the means in current times to drive such cars. This is because several problems accompany the use of fuel-powered cars that heap heavily on a consumer with a moderate salary and a not-so-ostentatious lifestyle: one, they are expensive; this is inclusive of that one has to pay more taxes, one has to spend more on fuel; and second, that they do not give good gas-mileage. Fuel-efficiency in cars is a feature that only the expensive can adorn, and those that fall in the affordable spectrum of the common man cannot embrace such a feature. At this point it is also worth noting that contributing to global warming, though unintentionally, has in fact caused many natural disasters all over the world that has caused an immense loss of life; for instance the tsunami in Japan and Indonesia, violent hurricanes in the United States of America and other natural disasters. Human feeling and sympathy are what that separate human from animal. Our luxury and convention has caused and will continue to cause others to lose their life and that of their kin (Wheeler, 2008). For the solution of the aforementioned problem, that begets many other problems, a desperate need is felt by the general public that could help save money on taxes, fuel costs, and car maintenance and that it does not weigh heavily on their conscience that they are causing perpetual damage to the environment, which is a gift not to be taken for granted. The solution that is proposed by scientists and environmentalists is to return to former means of transportation that are sustainable, such as rowing boats, horses, camels, bicycles, carts or on foot. Although, some of those ways have been adopted by people, such as in Beijing, people use bicycles or walk on foot to work. However environmentally friendly these ways may seem, they are still not the answer to the problems that the people are facing. This is because, owing to the soaring rise in traffic and stringent work ethics that corporations demand, rowing, walking, cycling, etc, consume a lot of time and are not ideal for everyday life, given the evolving nature of life and technology .In addition to this, cars have also been manufactured that use solar energy to run, and they are known as ‘solar cars. Although solar cars are an instant attraction for people, as they do not require any kind of fuel to run, they are very expensive to buy and maintain. They can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are costly because they make use of solar panels, which are very expensive themselves. Secondly, solar power cars are virtually useless if the car is in a tunnel, in an underground garage or if the weather is cloudy. Third, they are not as fast and can only go up to 40 miles per hour. Furthermore, they cannot be used at night and that they need constant exposure to sunlight. In answer to all the problems cited above, scientists have come up with environmentally friendly or eco-friendly cars that are bestowed with the ability to run on minimum or no fuel at all. Such cars have been given the name of ‘green cars.’ A green car or environmentally friendly car is a motor car that causes minimum harmful effects to the environment than the motor cars that use conventional internal combustion engines that run on petroleum, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or diesel. Green vehicles are developed so as to be powered by cutting-edge motor vehicle technologies or alternative fuels. Those technologies include hybrid electric-powered vehicles that use both electricity and a minimum amount of fuel that if run with fuel would produce no or minimum carbon emissions, battery powered vehicles that run on batteries that once used could be replaced , plug-in-hybrid electric motor vehicles that need charging just like cellular phone charging , car engines that use compressed air for extraction of energy to run and engines that use hydrogen and fuel cells for extraction of energy, motor vehicles that run on neat ethanol, natural gas powered motor vehicles and motor vehicles that use a combination of ethanol and biodiesel . All the technologies cited above are energy-efficient; they make no green-house emissions and are sustainable. The benefits of green cars or environmentally friendly cars are numerous, but rather most important is the cause that they contribute to. First, environmentally friendly cars are very fuel efficient. Hybrid cars use electric batteries along with petrol engines. Some are completely electrically powered and some are 70% electric and 30% petrol, although there may be variations. In all, they use no fuel which means that a lot on money and time could be saved without having to go to petrol stations and spending astronomical amounts on fuel. Hybrid cars that use petrol along with electric power only consume petrol when the car goes over a certain speed, and that speed limit is rarely passed in everyday life (Miller, 2010). Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is also a great alternative to petrol and diesel, which is significantly cheaper than petrol or diesel. For instance, the filling up of the motor vehicle (Toyota) Prius of 2008 today would cost more than $60. Whereas the (Toyota) Prius 46 with (mpg) that has a capacity of 11.9 gallons could be driven for 547 miles. Now compare this with the complete refueling of (Toyota) Camry’s 18.5 gallon fuel tank for $87 and driving for only 343 miles.  In effect, if the car is driven for fifteen thousand miles per year, a staggering amount of almost twenty-three hundred dollars could be saved at fuel-costs by choosing the (Toyota) Prius over (Toyota) Camry (Benjamin, 2011). Secondly, environmentally friendly cars help save a lot of money on taxes. Road tax is now determined by the amount of emissions produced by the car, while with ecofriendly cars road tax can be as little as $0. As for other eco-friendly cars, such as hybrid cars, the cost of tax will be very low. Hence, the prospect of saving money on fuel costs and taxes is too good an opportunity to not avail. Although hybrid cars are expensive, but much of the cost is compensated by the return of as much as $3000 on taxes and government incentives, since owners of hybrid cars are eligible for hybrid tax credit. Also, research has shown that a lot of people have switched and some are actually planning to switch to environmentally friendly cars to set off their living costs which have increased a lot in the recent times owing to the inflationary pressure and melt down of the economy (Wheeler, 2008). Third, with eco-friendly cars fewer natural resources will be exhausted. This will lead to a huge reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases and there will also be less dependence of the country on foreign oil imports. Oil imports are usually made from middle-eastern countries and the country making the import is at the mercy of the country selling oil; this helps the country save money on unnecessary expenditures for which there are better alternatives. For instance, the U.S.A makes 60% of its oil imports from the Middle East, and the technology or fuels required by eco-friendly cars are all indigenously available in the U.S.A. Furthermore, with less fuel needed by the country, there could also be fewer incidents of oil spills or pipeline leaks, which can kill wildlife and pollute land and water sources. In addition, eco-friendly cars also have benefits for the owner. They give better gas-mileage than the convention petrol or diesel using vehicles. According to the U.S Department of Energy: “The cost of fuel is half as much as that for a conventional motor vehicle, whereas the cost for using a fully electric-powered car is one-quarter as much” Furthermore, eco-friendly cars that need charging could be connected to any charging outlet at home. Last, wide-spread use of eco-friendly cars will send a message to the people who are not aware of the benefits of such cars and to the businesses which are manufacturing eco-friendly cars. It will let them know that people value the protection of environment and that they seek an alternative to conventional fuel. As with the increase in use of eco-friendly cars, businesses will strive to come up with better eco-friendly vehicles to meet the demands of users. And this is when companies will start developing greener cars in comparison to those which harm the environment (Motavalli, 2000). Some of the eco-friendly cars that I would like to name are: Toyota Prius hybrid car, Chevrolet Volt plug-in car, Nissan Leaf all electric car, Ford Focus Electric car, Ford Fusion Energi hybrid car and Honda Civic Hybrid car. They are environmentally friendly because they all use either completely electricity or are hybrid cars that use minimum amount of fuel. The Chevrolet Volt plug- in has a 60 mpg-e, Ford Fusion Energi with 100 mpg-e, Ford Focus Electric with 105 mpg-e, Nissan Leaf with 99 mpg-e and Honda Civic Hybrid with 45 mpg-e. The use of eco-friendly vehicles has become a global phenomenon with countries and unions promoting its use and sales by providing incentives to those who own such vehicles, the European Union is one such example. 15 out of its 27 countries are promoting use of green cars by providing incentives such as tax relief and by even giving bonus payments to those who are opting to buy green cars. Hence, it is about time we realize that environmental protection is a global obligation and that every step taken to safeguard it is not enough, for the environment is a blessing and has a soul of its own. References Top of Form Motavalli, J. (2000). Forward drive: The race to build "clean" cars for the future. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.Bottom of Form Miller, D. A. (2010). The green movement. Detroit: Greenhaven Press. Wheeler, J. C. (2008). Alternative cars. Edina, Minn: ABDO. Top of Form Benjamin, D. (2011). Prius. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. Top of Form Sperling, D., Gordon, D., & Schwarzenegger, A. (2009). Two billion cars: Driving toward sustainability. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Top of Form Wheeler, J. C. (2008). Alternative cars. Edina, Minn: ABDO. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More