Green energy

Green energy Spencer fullmer Salt lake community college Physics 1010

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Green energy

The topic of green energy is something that interest me because there are many aspects that may not be as efficient as they may be advertised to be, I would like to explore some of these ways to participate in being Green and explore witch of them are truly helpful to the environment as opposed to the traditional Cole and natural fuel approach that we have seen in the past. I expect that I will be able learn the things that contribute the keeping the environment cleaner, and the things that are not helpful, I suspect in some cases may be less efficient than traditional ways of producing energy. The subject is somewhat of a hot topic so much so that many energy companies will offer incentives that are aimed at encouraging home owners and business owners to make changes to their energy consumption that would reduce their usage, for example here where we live Rocky mountain power offers cash incentives to recycle your older refrigerator, or to decrease the amount of heat lost from your home by replacing the windows in your home. (power, 2013) For comparison lets look at the statistics for traditional Cole and fossil fuels here are some facts according to CDIAC (carbon dioxide information analysis center), a government sponsored organization there have been 337 billion metric tons of carbon released in to the atmosphere since 1751 due to fossil fuel consumption, there is some positive news when it comes to the use of natural gas as this method of fuel is gaining popularity and is becoming more accessible to more people to use. (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/carbonbudget/2013/, 2013) The issue with fossil fuel is that the consumption of these types of fuel is that they release carbon into the atmosphere as these get caught in the atmosphere and the sun rays strike the earth they are reflected on these carbon molecules and ultimately get trapped. This process being repeated

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for many years has cause the speculation that this process is the cause for the earths gradual warming causing disruptions in many of the earths natural functions.

Natural gas is the first form of energy that I would like to talk about, on average the cost of natural gas per mile is cheaper when compared to the cost of gas or diesel; this could change due to the price that is subject to changes in the future and some people feel that as natural gas gains popularity that the price may increase do to supply and demand. If a gasoline vehicle can cover 20 miles using one gallon of fuel a natural gas vehicle can go the same distance for $1.50 less. (Stenquist, 2013)This being said there can be an argument made that the price may stay the same due to the accessibility of the fuel, most of the neural gas can be found in our own country this makes it so we do not need to depend on other countries to buy fossil fuels from them. The second and more discussed topic concerning natural gas that serves as a selling point for many is it contains less carbon. Carbon is the main suspect when it comes to greenhouse gasses, so as a result natural gas burns cleaner than conventional gasoline or diesel due to its lower carbon content. When used as a vehicle fuel, it can offer life cycle greenhouse gas emissions benefits over conventional fuels, depending on the vehicle type, drive cycle and engine calibration. In addition, using natural gas may reduce some types of tail pipe emissions. A report for the prepared for the U.S. department of energy and California energy commission cited a 30% reduction in all greenhouse gasses at the tail pipe of a NGV (natural gas vehicle). (Stenquist, 2013) Among other things there are many other benefits that have been reported that come as a direct result from using NGVs, this majority of the information pertains to commercial use of NGVs a New York cab company reported that the time between oil changes and general maintenance was significantly less than there traditional gasoline taxes, the improved

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performance is accredited to the cleaner burning natural gas. I work for the University Of Utah as a shuttle bus driver, the University is active in changing their bus fleet over to more green vehicles they have changed over about half of their fleet to a natural gas vehicles, I do have the opportunity on a regular basis to drive both a natural gas bus and a diesel bus, when comparing the two of them I am pretty pleased when it comes to driving the natural gas bus in comparison to the diesel buses; The amount of power is comparable or in some cases more powerful that our diesel busses. As I preparing for this paper I talked with my boss about the pros and cons of the two types of transportation, I was surprised to see that from a cost stand point that that our cost to fuel our fleet was noticeably lower the more we began to use natural gas buses. Not many vehicle manufactures offer natural gas vehicles to the general public for this reason coupled with the shortage of natural gas pumps I so not see Natural gas vehicles being a good source of transportation for me or the general public; I do however recommend them for commercial fleets do to the fact that a corporation can install natural gas pumps for their own private fleet. Another interesting field of green energy is solar panels as far as I know solar panels have always been in existence (for as long as I have been alive), but for whatever reason they have not been widely used. Living in a desert we have a great oppertuentdy to use the power that can be hyarvested from the sun for example there is a 600 million project that will instaled in the desert near rual Delta Utah. (dinha, 2013) Evin though this large power producing project will be here in Utah we will not receave the energy benefits, intead this power will go to our neghboring state of California. Lets look at how solar panels work; as the suns rays strike the solar panel wich is always made of semi conductive materal some of the energy gets traped and knocks free some electrons alowing

Green energy

the to flow freeley. This is the most basic explanation of how these solar panels work. (toothman) This is onley a very small part of green energy there are many ways to use the natural recorces around us in unexpected ways, to help power our homes and live our lives in a confertable way I hope that the field of green energy contunes to expand so there are many alerinitives.

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power, r. m. (2013). http://www.rockymountainpower.net/res/sem/utah.html. Retrieved 11 20, 2013, from http://www.rockymountainpower.net. (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/carbonbudget/2013/, 2013) Stenquist, P. (2013, 10). The case for NGVs . dinha, n. (2013, 09 13). http://fox13now.com/2013/09/19/600-million-solar-power-plant-coming-toutah/. Retrieved 11 22, 2013, from http://fox13now.com/.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/solar-cell2.htm