ENERGY A Whole New WorldBy: Joel Thomas

ENERGY • Energy is the power to all our daily machines and tools allowing us to live

what we know as a normal life.• From powering a simple watch on you wrist to the Nuclear Reactor that

powers your community we can see the correlation between energy and our happiness.

HOW THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENERGY GOT STARTED

• Towards the early founding of America and the creation of the colonies the North America was largely known as an agrarian society abundant with many forests and the vast majority of it untouched.

• People began to realize the vast majority of resources which has laid untouched for generations.

HISTORY OF ENERGY• The first thing that was used heavily was firewood • Many of the forests were cleared to sustain the great demand• Soon people realized that coal was a much better fuel to burn than fuel • The demand for coal exponentially grew dwarfing the previous demand

for wood• From coal the focus moved to oil which is still the main focus of modern

day but people are seriously beginning to focus on other sources.

OIL • Oil worldwide is the most common form of fuel used on the planet making

up for over 33% of the worlds energy.• The most familiar form of oil is crude oil also called Petroleum• A naturally occurring smelly yellow/black substance • Petroleum is formed from zoo plankton and algae from millions of years

ago are exposed to extreme pressure and heat from deep under the sedimentary rock.

OIL• The way oil is retrieved is from drilling deep into the ground into

reservoirs of oil which are filled with layers of gas oil and water.• The main thing that is wanted is the oil and the natural gas• Drilling into the reservoir the pressure from it will push the contents of

the pocket up to the surface for a certain amount of time• After the pressure escapes from the reservoir to get the remaining

materials in the pocket water is pumped into the pocket bringing up water mixed with oil.

• Worldwide almost 90 million barrels of oil are produced each day.

AMERICA AND OIL• America is the highest user of oil worldwide consuming 20.8 million

barrels per day.• America receives huge amounts of oil from all over the world receiving

millions of barrels mainly from the Middle East including countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya.

• The United States main goal is to become self sufficient and produce all the resources needed to support themselves.

• This goal has never been reached by but it is soon thought to be in reach

EFFECT ON ENVIRONMENT• Drilling for oil is a very dangerous job in itself for it requires puncturing a

high pressure pocket in the earth that is filled with methane a highly flammable gas.

• Drilling releases many dirty chemicals from being held in the ground often contaminating local water supply which usually leads to people getting sick.

• Drilling also releases Carbon emissions which contribute to global warming.

• Offshore drilling is especially dangerous because of the danger it poses to marine life and how it poisons of the ecosystem.

• BP Oil Spill in 2012

SUBSTITUTES• America’s government knows how vulnerable they are because of the

countries extreme dependence on other nations for Petroleum.• There are many other solutions to this dependence on petroleum

including solar energy, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric energy, biofuel, fracking and wind are all viable replacements for oil.

• All of these options are available in abundance all over the United States. • All these viable options exist but he government makes their decisions

based on the economy.

SOLAR ENERGY • Solar Energy is still considered to be the energy source of the future

simply because if its abundance all over the world it seems to be the most accessible energy source available.

• The next obstacle that stops solar energy from taking over completely replacing Petroleum is that solar energy must be stored more efficiently.

WIND ENERGY • Wind energy is a form of energy that is on the rise especially in the United

States• Many wind farms are proposed to be built out in the ocean away from

land where the winds out at sea are much stronger and the mills wont bother any of the inhabitants close by.

HYDROELECTRIC ENERGY• This is a form of energy which is used when large damns are built the flow

of the water is used to create electricity.• This form of energy is used in places such as the Hoover Damn, and at

Niagara Falls.• China has really embraced this form of energy and in 2012 they

expanded their hydroelectric power and jumped from 3.2% to 22% of china runs off of Hydroelectricity.

NUCLEAR• The world was changed forever when Albert Einstein created the atom

bomb.• This opened new doors for a new type of revolutionary energy, Nuclear

Fission.• Following the aftermath of Fukushima in Japan many countries started to

turn away from Nuclear Energy scared away from the dangers it possessed.

COAL • The main source of fuel prior to petroleum still used prevalently

throughout the world.• The United States used to be the leader in bot petroleum and coal used

till 2012 China used 50.2% coal to supply their energy.• Using Coal over petroleum would have its advantageous in that coal is

very common in U.S., it is all over the country and with so much coal there is more than enough for the country and then some to export to other countries.

NATURAL GAS • Oil is found deep within the earth in high pressure pockets called

reservoirs.• A substitute to oil that is well used in modern times is Natural Gas which

is mostly used to power the heat in homes across America.• People want to take this a step further and begin using Natural Gas to

power more things other than heat in homes.• New drilling techniques called fracking are allowing the US to totally ramp

up the production of Natural Gas allowing hope that this solution might actually work.

FRACKING • Fracking is a process where a solution mostly comprised of water and

chemicals are shot at high pressure into layers of shale within the Earth.• This process creates fractures within the layers of shale which allow all

the Natural Gas stored in the layer to escape through these fractures which is then collected.

• This process has proved to be very successful and can prove to be very useful because shale layers are very prevalent in the US.

DEMOCRATS• The Democrats are constantly lobbying for America to gain energy

independence wanting to do it as quickly as possible.• Currently the Obama Administration is following this pattern • Examples are lifting the ban on deep sea drilling, lifting bans on fracking

so that it could continue uninhibited, many millions of dollars are also used to fund research and development of other fuel substitutes.

• Democrats used much stronger language regarding the “tyranny” of oil: We will break our addiction to foreign oil

REPUBLICANS• The republicans support energy independence but they want to achieve

their way• A market based solution which would still keep the American economy in

tact.• This system does not want one dominant energy source dominating the

market but rather multiple energy sources competing to strengthen the economy.

INTEREST GROUPS • There are so many interest groups on the energy policy almost every

fathomable type of energy source has its own number of Interest groups.• A well known interest group coalition are the EISIGS • EISIGS (Energy Institutes Special Interest Group).

WORLD ENERGY REPORT• http://www.youtube.com/user/BPplc?feature=watch