Trend Tracker
Six Major Changes You Need to Watch
Clean, renewable energy is not new but a collection of major economic, environmental and technological changes are new and are making many believe that clean, renewable energy is emerging quickly--and is here to stay. We encourage homeowners and businessowners, students and professionals, and all citizens to remain aware of these trends. It is important to remember that this isn't destiny at work but human choice. We can use our power of choice to find another better way of meeting our energy needs.
Six Major Changes
Increasing Demand
U.S. electricity and fuel demand is expected to increase 19% by 2015 and global energy demand is forecasted to increase 50% by 2025. The increase domestically is due to growing population, the increasing usage of electronic lifestyle, business, and communications products. The global increase is due primarily to the growing economies and populations of China and India. US Energy Information Agency
Decreasing Supply
There has not been a significant new fossil fuel energy discovery since the 1970s and thus talks of "peak oil" the point where demand exceeds new supply is project to come in the next 10 - 15 years; Chevron’s recent discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico was beneath 5 miles of ocean bedrock. The cost of extracting conventional energy sources has increased due to the increasing distances to fuel sources and the nationalization of fuel sources, such as by Venezuela and Russia. US Energy Information Agency
Price Instability
Fossil-fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, have become commodities in a global marketplace and prices are increasing due to geopolitical instability and increasing costs. Most major oil and natural gas suppliers such as Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela are not friendly to American customers, utilities, and governments who are demanding stable energy supplies and prices. US Energy Information Agency
National Security
The United States' centralized, foreign-sourced fossil-fuel intensive energy system is vulnerable to attacks on the system itself and to unstable regimes and so-called "petro-dictatorships" in fossil-fuel producing nations abroad. We depend on these unfriendly nations for energy, sending them billions of dollars each year and then spend even more money to defend ourselves from these same nations. President Bush’s energy policy emphatically calls for "energy independence" and a departure from our "addiction to oil" largely for national security reasons. A view from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Public Health
Government, industry, and consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the human health cost of burning fossil-fuels. Across the border in Canada, for example, the Ontario Ministry of Energy announced in 2005 that it will phase out all of its coal-fired power plants claiming simply that coal-fired electricity costs too much in terms of human health impacts. US Environmental Protection Agency on Various Electricity Sources and their impact on Human Health and the Environment.
Climate Change
Increasing attention to global climate change has politicians considering carbon taxes, gas taxes and a portfolio of other market-based mechanisms. It also has many major corporations declaring their intention of becoming "carbon neutral" (emitting no carbon dioxide the leading greenhouse gas). By 2030 China, despite its many renewable energy projects, is forecasted to emit more carbon dioxide than the entire world currently generates. Debate about climate change continues for some, but meanwhile it is an issue that is driving major change in how energy is generated, transported and used. Pennsylvania and Northeast US Perspective and an International Perspective from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and an example of another view from the Science and Public Policy Institute. We encourage all website visitors to always consider the bias of the information source which includes where their funding comes from. You can use www.sourcewatch.org.
Any one or two of these issues would be reason enough for a renewed effort to find viable, clean alternatives. All together, they make the call for action inescapable.