Geo 115

Alison Ciatti

Geology 115- Extra Credit

In class on Monday, November 22nd, we watched a movie called Energy Crossroads, about our consumption of fossil fuels. It was a documentary about what we are using now, but also about what we could use in the future. It showed some alternative fuels and some ways to cut down on the energy that we already have but are using too much of.

The energy crisis now is eminent. We have all heard of the “Green Movement” and have all been urged to take down our energy consumption. This movie started out in defining what fossil fuels are. They said that they are from the earth and they are what make our societies grow. They make up for 85% of the energy provided in the United States, and we use about 25% of the entire world’s energy even though we are only 5% of the population. Often times we think that this is an infinite source of energy for our infinite growth, but we are very wrong. It took about 150 years to use about half of the earth’s oil. Soon we will run out of the inexpensive oil that we love so much. Liquid oil only is about 40% of the earth’s energy.

The movie then talked about how the cars that we drive and buildings we live and work in are inefficient. The cars that we drive are barely more efficient than the ford cars because they still only use about 30% of the gasoline taken in to actually move the car and the rest is just lost. We are also very wasteful when it comes to our food consumption. For every 1 calorie of food we take in, it takes 10,000 calories of energy to make. We need to stop being so inefficient with our energy usage. If the energy usage keeps going so fast we are going to hit our peak oil production very soon. This is where the population keeps growing but we have less and less oil.

Some things that the movie talks about being energy saving practices include car-pooling, speed limits lowered, and public transportation increase. These types of ideas came into the public view about 30...