Major Effects of Fossil Fuels - Assignment Example

China first employed coal for cooking and heating and in early medieval Europe it was considered as an inferior fuel (Heinberg, cited in ProCon.org, 2013). The first practical use of natural gas was as early as 200 BCE by the Chinese made salt from brine and conveyed the natural gas to evaporators through bamboo pipes (EIA, cited in ProCon.org, 2013).

After the industrial revolution in the 18th century, large-scale use of fossil fuels has been reported (“Why did fossil fuels become so popular”, 2014). Petroleum products are being used as fuel to power transportation such as ships, automobiles and aeroplanes. Coal is used for electricity generation.

The widespread use of fossil fuels harms the environment as these are a major cause of global warming, they cause acid rain, they will end up someday because they are non-renewable, their extraction damages the landscape and they affect the economy due to increase and decrease in their prices (Shepherd, 2002).

If we do not start finding and using alternative sources of energy, we will not only end up severely polluting our environment but will also end up with no more fossil fuel reserves left. Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and the geological processes that resulted in their creation took millions of years, meaning that if we run out of them, we will need millions of years to get them back, that too if the environmental conditions are right (Shepherd, 2002).

While fossil fuels are being depleted, there is a need to develop alternative sources of energy. Alternative sources of energy such as nuclear power, solar power, wind power, hydropower and geothermal energy are renewable sources. This implies that they are so abundant on Earth that they cannot be depleted. These sources of energy do not pollute the environment and thus are better alternatives to fossil fuels (“Energy Story”, 2012).

Nuclear energy makes is the energy derived from atoms. It is based on nuclear fission and fusion reactions. Nuclear power plants are being constructed worldwide and these use uranium as fuel. A very large amount of energy is generated in nuclear reactions. Solar power involves the use of the sun’s rays using solar cells that convert energy from sunlight into electricity. However, the construction of solar arrays needs a large amount of land and solar cells are expensive to make and install. Wind energy uses the energy from wind, where the wind drives a turbine on a windmill and the turbine is in turn connected to a generator to produce electricity. However, this wind energy also faces limitations because it needs a specific speed of the wind to run and this is not possible at all times due to changing weather (planetseed.com, 2014). Hydropower also works on the same principle as wind power but here, water drives a turbine connected to a generator for producing electricity. Geothermal energy makes use of geothermal vents of hot water whose energy is converted to electricity. The hot water spins a special turbine connected to a generator to make electricity. The steam is cooled in a cooling tower (“Energy Story”, 2012).

It is important to conserve energy in the modern world because everything runs on electricity and fuel, be it machines, computers, lights, etc. If we run out of energy, living life the way we have been doing will become difficult.

The country identified for this case study is Germany. The main sources of energy used in Germany are petroleum and related liquids which make up 37% of its total primary energy consumption. A majority of petroleum product is taken by the transportation industry. Germany was the eighth largest energy consumer in the world. Coal accounts for around 24% of its total primary energy consumption. Coal use in Germany increased after the Fukushima reactor accident in Japan after which Germany substituted nuclear power with coal for electricity generation (EIA, 2014).

By 2014, Germany set a record of generating 74% of its power needs from renewable energy (Kroh, 2014). It was the world’s fifth-largest generator of nuclear energy in 2012 but closed down eight reactors after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident. It is one of the largest producers in the world of non-hydro renewable electricity, most of which is solar and wind energy (EIA, 2014). By the end of 2012, it had the highest amount of solar power capacity per capita in the world and its wind power reached the highest levels for any country last year, generating 25.2 GW that accounts for 39% of Germany’s electricity supply on a single day (Kroh, 2014).

Germany is on an energy conservation plan through its Energiewende, or energy transformation, vision whose goal is to power Germany almost entirely on renewable sources by the year 2050 (Kroh, 2014). German Federal Ministry for the Environment reported that Germany will completely switch to renewable energy, and also add up to 900,000 new cleantech jobs by the year 2030 (Burgermeister, 2009). As part of its energy conservation plan, Germany is constructing a smart grid to enable the integration of electricity from renewable energy. By 2020, it aims to make 30% of its electricity from wind energy, bioenergy and hydropower. It aims to make photovoltaics (for solar energy) commercially viable by 2015 (Burgermeister, 2009).