Question: Which four of the 15 Technical Options from the Carbon Mitigation Init

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Question: Which four of the 15 Technical Options from the Carbon Mitigation Initiative listed below should be turned into U.S. Energy Policies? Your choices must be sustainable per the definition of a sustainable energy resource, which is also listed below. This means they cannot involve using fossil fuels or other finite resources, and they cannot result in any significant environmental damage. For each of your choices, discuss why you think it would be one of the most effective choices.

Sustainable Energy Resource: Sustainable Energy refers to an energy resource that: (1) Can meet a significant amount of the energy needs of the present (2) Will be available to meet a significant amount of the energy needs in the future (3) Does not cause significant damage to the natural environment

15 Technical Options from the Carbon Mitigation Initiative

1. Double the fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 mpg.

2. Decrease the number of car miles traveled by half by providing more mass transit and other smart growth alternatives to enable people to drive less.

3. Use best efficiency practices in all residential and commercial buildings.  

4. Produce current coal-based electricity with twice today’s efficiency. Keep in mind that this would be enormously expensive to rebuild all heat exchangers in existing coal plant boilers and in coal plant condensers, and that the technology may be difficult to achieve.

5. Replace 1400 coal electric plants with natural gas-powered facilities. (fuel-switching) Keep in mind that more than half of that number of coal plants are not located in the U.S.

6. Capture and store emissions from 800 coal electric plants. (Emissions would be sequestered underground in stable geologic formations.) Keep in mind that the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is still being tested, and has never had a successful large-scale trial.

7. Produce hydrogen from coal at six times today's rate and store the captured CO2. (Use coalfired plants to make H2 for use by fuel cells and sequester the CO2 underground.) See #6 above for comment on CCS.

8. Capture carbon from 180 coal-to-synfuel plants and store the CO2. (Synfuel is a gasoline substitute derived from coal.) See #6 above for comment on CCS.

9. Double the current global nuclear power plant capacity to replace coal-based electricity.

10. Increase wind electricity capacity by 10 times relative to today, for a total of 2 million large wind turbines.

11. Install 100 times the current capacity of solar electricity.

12. Use 40,000 square kilometers of solar panels (or 4 million wind turbines) to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars. (Do not use H2 gas made from natural gas!)

13. Increase cellulosic ethanol (not corn-based ethanol) production 12 times by creating biomass plantations equal to 1/6 of the world’s cropland. Will this cause food shortages?

14. Eliminate tropical deforestation - save the rain forest. (Tropical deforestation releases CO2 that was stored in trees, sending it into the atmosphere.)

15. Adopt conservation tillage in all agricultural soils. (Instead of burning plant remains or plowing them under, conservation tillage minimizes plowing and keeps more CO2 stored in the soil.)

Explanation / Answer

Answer: Out of the 15 Technical Options from the Carbon Mitigation Initiative following option should be listed into U.S. Energy Policies:

9. Double the current global nuclear power plant capacity to replace coal-based electricity.

10. Increase wind electricity capacity by 10 times relative to today, for a total of 2 million large wind turbines.

11. Install 100 times the current capacity of solar electricity.

14. Eliminate tropical deforestation - save the rain forest. (Tropical deforestation releases CO2 that was stored in trees, sending it into the atmosphere.)

9. Double the current global nuclear power plant capacity to replace coal-based electricity.

Nuclear power based electricity is a best option to replace coal based electricity as a sustainable energy option. This is a clean energy and can be used efficiently to meet the current as well as future energy demands.

A nuclear power plant or nuclear power station is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces electricity.

In terms of global energy transformation, the emphasis should be on converting the major part of the world's electrical energy generation capacity from fossil fuels to nuclear fission. This can realistically be achieved within a few decades, as has already been done in France during the 1970s and 1980s. Such an energy transformation would reduce the global emissions of carbon dioxide profoundly, as well as cutting other significant greenhouse gases like methane. Industrial nations should take the lead in this transition.

In this reference researches should be done on the alternative source to replace uranium and plutonium to generate energy for the nuclear plants because these are also present in a limited amount and considerable increase in demand of nuclear energy will create a pressure on Uranium and Plutonium sources.

10. Increase wind electricity capacity by 10 times relative to today, for a total of 2 million large wind turbines.

Wind energy is now the second fastest-growing source of electricity in the world, with a global installed capacity of 539,581 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2017. There are also over 89,000 MW of wind capacity operational in the U.S., as of January 2018. Its capacity should be increase many folds to meet the requirement.

Wind is simply air in motion. It is caused by the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface by the sun. Because the Earth’s surface is made of very different types of land and water, it absorbs the sun’s heat at different rates. One example of this uneven heating can be found in the daily wind cycle.

During the day, the air above the land heats up more quickly than the air over water. The warm air over the land expands and rises, and the heavier, cooler air rushes in to take its place, creating wind. At night, the winds are reversed because the air cools more rapidly over land than over water.

In the same way, the atmospheric winds that circle the earth are created because the land near the Earth’s equator is heated more by the sun than the land near the North and South Poles.

Wind energy is a best option and better alternative for sustainable development due to following reason:

11. Install 100 times the current capacity of solar electricity.

Solar energy is derived from the sun’s radiation. The sun is a powerful energy source, and this energy source can be harnessed by installing solar panels. Did you know that the energy that it provides to the Earth for one hour, could meet the global energy needs for one year? We are able to harness only 0.001 percent of that energy.

As a renewable CO2-free power source, the environmental impact of solar power is significantly smaller than other power generation methods. The impact is mainly related to the production and supply of the special materials and metals that are required to produce solar panels. The location and the water used to clean the solar panels also affect the environment. We are working hard to find alternative ways to clean our solar panels.

This source of energy has its advantage and disadvantage also which should be taken into account before drafting any policy.

Advantage

Disadvantage

So it will be very reasonable to install more than 100 times to current solar capacity to meet the clean energy demand of the present and future also.

14. Eliminate tropical deforestation - save the rain forest. (Tropical deforestation releases CO2 that was stored in trees, sending it into the atmosphere.)

Implementation of the idea of Sustainable Development it is very necessary to search out the alternative source of clean energy and to preserve the forests who work as a Carbon Sinks.

Tropical forest trees, like all green plants, take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen during photosynthesis. Plants also carry out the opposite process—known as respiration—in which they emit carbon dioxide, but generally in smaller amounts than they take in during photosynthesis. The surplus carbon is stored in the plant, helping it to grow.

When trees are cut down and burned or allowed to rot, their stored carbon is released into the air as carbon dioxide. And this is how deforestation and forest degradation contribute to global warming.

We need to protect tropical forests from deforestation and degradation if we want to reduce emissions to the levels needed to protect the planet against the worst global warming impacts. Ending deforestation will not solve global warming by itself, of course—urgent action is needed to cut the other 90 percent of emissions. But the problem cannot be solved if the role of tropical deforestation is ignored.

These are all the measures should be taken collectively to have a sustainable development and clean energy.

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