Driving cars, heating buildings, producing electricity, people all need gas. Therefore, gas is directly related to people’s normal life and the global economy. Recently, the Middle East political and economic situation has been deteriorating which has led to the continuous hikes of gas prices. The oil price, the volatile situation in Libya and rumblings in Saudi Arabia are being blamed for spiking gas prices. The political turmoil sweeping across countries like Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Tunisia have resulted in rising oil and gasoline prices, increased inflation, devalued currencies, and diminishing stock values.
These industrial activities have raised atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide which contribute to greenhouse gases. The extra amount of these gases mean there is a thicker layer, meaning the gases absorb outgoing long-wave radiation which traps in too much heat. Increasing amounts of CO₂, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour and ozone all contribute to this. The main cause in this rise is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas and petrol. Since the industrial revolution the levels of atmospheric CO₂ have increased from 280 parts per million to 380ppm for the past 10,000.
Comparison and Contrast: Gasoline vs. Ethanol In a world that is becoming more and more dependent on machines and technology, effective fuels are in high demand. Today, one of the many energy disputes is between conventional gasoline and ethanol. Gasoline has been around since before internal combustion engines were in production, so why the sudden interest in ethanol? I will go into detail on the dispute between gasoline and ethanol and the benefits/drawbacks of each. Gasoline, derived from a limited fossil fuel, producing a relatively low octane, and causing many foreign disputes may still be a better choice than water-attracting ethanol that will require change to an entire industry.
Supplying a sustainable source of energy for today’s population is already a challenge, however in the future the world’s population is set to hit a peak of 7.8 billion. From the graph you can see that, in the past, the supply of energy has always followed the pattern of increasing population. This was because the world still had large reserves of untapped fossil fuels, allowing for an increase in production. However as these reserves begin to diminish the supply of energy may fall behind the increase in population unless an alternative form of energy is found, capable of filling the large energy gap left behind from fossil fuels. This coupled with an increase in living for the majority of the world, especially RICs such as India where its oil consumption had increased by 40 million tonnes over a 6 year period, makes supplying the world’s energy demands a very difficult task.
Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraq faced UN economic sanctions that constrained the oil industry making trade very difficult. Although these sanctions have since been lifted, civil unrest and internal economic problems since the war have continued to disrupt supplies. Iran has an elected government but its politics are strongly influenced by religious leaders. This has damaged relations between Iran and the Western world and as a result the supply of oil from this region has been restricted. Political developments in the Middle East are therefore of great importance to the energy security of the rest of the world as the region possesses most of the worlds oil and gas reserves.
How and why has the UK energy mix changed? An energy mix is made up of the different sources of energy used by households, industry, and commerce, and in the electricity generation industry. The UK is the EU’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. However, it has now passed its peak in production and is looking to importing far more of its energy now. The UK has used the vast majority of its easily accessible energy reserves already.
The national energy program The 1970s were a difficult economical period for the young developing country of Canada. During that period the oil prices were at its peak, and other economic problems were beginning to manifesting themselves. Unemployment was epidemic in the eastern provinces where the Trudeau government had much of its political support. (Edward A p12). Hence for the Prime minister wanted to help the eastern part by the means of controlling prices of oil on the west, introducing the national energy program.
Chris Moody Mrs. Cummings Advanced Composition 17 September 2012 Nuclear Power “The report called nuclear technology costly, potentially exceeding $7,000 per installed kilowatt, which could make it twice as much as a scrubbed coal-fired plant or three times as expensive as a combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant,” stated Jim Hempstead the Vice President and Senior Credit Officer of Moody’s Investor Service. America should switch to wind and water power generating instead of disaster-lurking nuclear power. Nuclear power is unsafe for the environment, expensive for the economy and unpredictable accidents can occur. Understanding the effects of nuclear power can be difficult because people first need to learn how it is made. Uranium or Plutonium fuel pellets housed in a reactor vessel heat water to six hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
Introduction Coal is a variety of solid, combustible and organic sedimentary rocks formed from vegetation that has been consolidated between other rock strata and altered by the combined effects of pressure and heat over millions of years (IEA, 2017). Around the world, requirements for energy and electricity are met by fossil fuels amongst which coal is the most abundant and broadly distributed. It is the most common fuel choice because it is a secure and low cost energy source and is relatively easy to mine, ship, and store. Coal is the second source of primary energy after oil and is mostly used for power generation. Over 40% of worldwide electricity is produced from coal (IEA, 2017).
Today, the world boast some 435 commercial nuclear power plants in 31 countries, with approximately 70 still under construction, supplying almost 11.5 percent of the world’s electricity needs. Currently, sixteen countries uses nuclear energy to generate at least one quarter of their electricity. It is also noted that South Korea and Bulgaria depends on nuclear energy for power, generating more than thirty percent of their energy consumption. (World Nuclear Association,