Wind Energy for the Us

Luke Kimmel

Wind Energy for U.S

Position: The United States should focus its efforts on developing more infrastructures for wind power.

Coal has been around since before the days of caveman. We’ve been told that U.S has coal reserves to last us for centuries and that clean coal is our answer for cleaner energy until we find something clean and efficient. The problem is that our coal reserves are much lower than predicted (120 years worth) and only about 6% of those reserves could actually be mined for a profit.1 Of course it goes without saying that burning coal for energy (45.9% of U.S energy consumption2) causes a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide emissions. Today, coal contributes about 1/3 of the U.S greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the countless number of other externalities coal mining has on our environment (e.g water pollution, habitat degradation). Although there is no immediate solution to this problem (nor is there one simple answer for it) there are many things that we can do in order to reduce the markets demand for coal. The two most viable sources of energy that are becoming popular and less expensive are energy from wind turbines and energy from solar photovoltaic panels. Wind power has the ability to produce energy on very large scales and it can be installed on homes for private use as well.

With the level of coal consumption where it is there is really no room for growth. Nuclear power (20.4% of current electric energy production) is at a standstill because of concerns about safety and the question about what to do with the waste after energy is created. Hydroelectric energy (7.4% of current electric energy production) is pretty much at its peak right now because most of North America’s largest rivers have already been dammed up. Natural Gas (which contributes 20.6% of our energy supply) is a dwindling supply although there is a larger supply in the U.S then there is fossil fuel. With a slight exception for hydroelectric power, all...