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Garrett T. Gysel English 1102 Professor Padgett November 26, 2013 Oil, Unfortunately There is no question that oil and fossil-fuels have made our world achieve new heights and make giant strides toward technological advancements but while that is just the cover of the book if you look in between it youll notice that oil has done just as much bad as it has good for our world, from pollution, to depleting the ozone layer, to oil spills, to causing war. If America as a nation, and truly not just us, but the whole world could reduce our dependency on foreign oil and fossil fuels there could be huge benefits. Dependence- the state of relying on or needing someone or something for aid, support, or the like. Ever since our world began using oil reliant objects we became dependent on oil and/or fossil-fuels. Oil is also a necessity for our everyday life on planet earth. Without oil we would have nothing. There have been thousands of studies on our reliance for fossil-fuels and just as our population numbers are on the rise, our dependence on fossil-fuels has also been on a steady incline ever since fossil-fuels were discovered. Because of our rise in reliance scientist have made ground-breaking discoveries and innovations to reduce our dependence on oil, such as: electric cars, turbines in dams that water turn to create electricity, solar panels, different renewable energy innovations, and many more. The list can go on and on and little bits at a time we are reducing our dependence on fossil-fuels but the increases in population cancel out any ground-breaks we make in renewable energy/non-fossil-fuels technology. Fossil-fuel control requires solving an international public goods problem as well as an addiction-like problem,

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breaking it will be more challenging. Using insights from the model, it also suggests that fossil fuel addiction, like cigarette addiction, may generate a long period of time in which people express sincere desire to convert to clean energy, but accomplish little to achieve that outcome.(GlobalChange) This source portrays a great analogy of our dependence on fossil-fuels by saying that our dependence on fossil-fuels is the exact same as being addicting to cigarettes. Both are terrible for our atmospheres longevity, and it explains how just like people trying to quit smoking, we are as United Nations trying to cut out our dependence on oil but is very challenging, just like breaking a personal addiction. There are many gears that keep the motor of the United States running. One of the most principal, pivotal gears in the engine is electricity, without electricity our economy would be non-existent. Electricity supply is considered as one of the essential inputs for any economic activity of developed and developing countries alike.(Bhatt) Bhattacharyya makes his argument that the diversity of fuel mix for electricity generation in selected European countries and investigates how the fuel bill has changed as a share of GDP between 1995 and 2005. Bhattacharyya did a study on 5 European countries and found that the British and the Dutch electricity systems are less diverse compared to the other 3 countries that were studied. In that part of his argument, in my opinion is the reason why our world is dependent on fossil fuels. Bhattacharyya believes that electricity supply that is run by fossil fuels is essential for our economy. This is a perfect example of why we are so dependent on fossil fuels. We as a nation need to believe that we can sustain a successful economy without being dependent on fossil fuels to run our country. We need to experiment with multiple kinds of renewable resources to find a way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The United States consumed 18.6 million barrels per day (MMbd) of petroleum

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products during 2012, making us the world's largest petroleum consumer.(eia.gov) Even though the United States of America is not anywhere close to the largest geographical country nor the most populated country in the world, we still consume to most petroleum of any other country in the world. That statistic proves that the United States as a country has a severe problem with our dependence on fossil-fuels. People do not realized but if our country could one by one invest our capital into alternative fuel and energy sources we could drastically reduce our consumption of petroleum. These alternative fuel and energy sources include: electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills, and using recycled oil if you have a petroleum-operated vehicle. Such communities drastically reduce the need for automobile use by taking advantage of so-called alternative forms of transportation, which pollute less and cost significantly less than personal auto use. Also, they provide mobility to the sizable portion of the population that is too old, too young, too poor or disabled to drive a car.(BreakOurOil) Governor Brian Schweitzer makes a very good point. What he is implying is to kill two birds with one stone by cutting out pollution and petroleum consumption by taking advantage of alternatives modes of transportation such as light rails, and electric vehicles while at the same time keeping old, senile adults, young children, and unlicensed vehicular operators off the road, reducing pollution, fuel consumption, accidents, and injury of collaterals. There is one thing that cant be left out which is, renewable energy. Renewable energy is a socially and politically defined category of energy sources. Renewable energy is generally defined as energy that comes from resources which are continually replenished on a human timescale such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat.(wiki) If we could get our society to understand the concept of renewable energy and its benefits that could come with it to our society, the results could be dumbfounding. About 16% of global final energy

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consumption comes from renewable resources, with 10% [3] [discuss] of all energy from traditional biomass, mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from hydroelectricity. New renewables (small hydro, modern biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels) accounted for another 3% and are growing rapidly.(wiki) In order for our dependence on fossil-fuels to be reduced, our society must increase these percentages of renewable energy. If we could build more dams, more solar panels, more windmills, those percentages can be drastically increased which would directly correlate with the decreased dependence on oil and fossil- fuels.

Works Cited (GlobalChange)- Suranovic, S. "Fossil Fuel Addiction and the Implications for Climate Change Policy." Global Environmental Change. 23.3 (2013): 598-608. Print. (Bhatt)- Bhattacharyya, S.C. "Fossil-fuel Dependence and Vulnerability of Electricity Generation: Case of Selected European Countries." Energy Policy. 37.6 (2009): 24112420. Print.

(eia.gov)- Times, New Y. "U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." EIA's Energy in Brief: How Dependent Are We on Foreign Oil? US Energy Information System, 13 Apr. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. <http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/article/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm>.

(BreakOurOil)- "How to Break Our Oil Dependence." New York Times. (2005). Print.

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(wiki)- Cartilidge, Edwin A. "Renewable Energy." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 June 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.