Discuss a scenario of a future where fossil fuels are used sustainably. You make

Question

Discuss a scenario of a future where fossil fuels are used sustainably. You make the decisions – it’s your future. Choose one method of nonrenewable energy production. Recap the main ideas involved, including – where it is found, how it is obtained, problems associated with obtaining it, problems associated with its everyday use, and your opinion on how society in general views this fossil fuel and its use. Then, tell a story of how society will operate, given that this fossil fuel is now used in a sustainable manner. Describe what life would both be like, in your new future, in: developed and non-developed nations. Include: price of the fuel, change in personal use, change in overall household use, change in public perception, change in industrial processes (or products) affected, change in the amount of environmental pollution created from its use or obtaining it.

Explanation / Answer

Oil, coal and natural gas are the examples of non-renewable sources of energy. These are called fossil fules which are formed by the natural phenomenon, i.e. the anaerobic decomposition of the buried dead organisms (plants and animals) provide the energy stored in them. Let's take an example of oil.

Oil reservoirs are stored in sub-surface layer of the earth's surface which need to be drilled to extract the fuel. The reservoirs are stored in different quantities under the earth's crust of various nations. Top reserves are present in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia followed by Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Russia, Libya and US.

Oil (or crude oil) is extracted from the earth using a perforation called as oil well by three techniques, that are, primary recovery, secondary recovery and enhanced recovery. Crude oil which is a liquid form of petroleum, upon refining, provides diesel, gasoline and other relevant petroleum products.

The initial issue in oil extract is that of locating the oil fields which is done by the scientists using seismic surveys to study geological structures that may store oil reserves. Another issue is to dril a long hole upto the oil well. Further, the issue of natural mechanisms that are, downward displacement of oil by natural water, upward movement of natural gas above oil, insufficient underground pressure to push oil upwards to the surface and high viscocity of oil which hinders its extraction. All these issues are dealt by primary, secondary and enahnced recovery during the time of extraction.

With development, industrialisation and modernisation, dependency of people has increased a lot over the non-renewable energy sources especially crude oil and its end products (e.g. petroleum, diesel etc). Almost the entire transport sector across the globe is dependent upon oil and its products. It has resulted into the deption of the fuel as well as environmental degradation including air pollution and ozone depletion. However, in recent years, with awareness and global environmental treaties, the scenario has started changing a bit. Government and organisations have begun taking actions to tackle the issue by adapting alternative and mitigation steps e.g. switching to other possible alternate fuel options.

Supposedly, the common people have been introduced to alternate possible fuel options which are renewable and environment friendly. Also, the fuel options are suitable enough to be adopted at a large scale globally by different natiosn. In such a scenario, the dependency of people on oil (or petroleum) will reduce to a greater extent and then its reserves will not be in a diminished state. Thus, it can be understood in a way that it is the high time that we need to have environmental friendly sources of energy in high quantities to serve as an alternate option of fuel. In that case only, the reserves of oil (non-renewable sources) can not be overused and hence can be conserved for future. That will be called as the sustainable use of oil reserves. In such a scenario, the society shall be more environment-friendly oriented as the ecology won't be affected due to the lesser use and hence pollution caused by oil (or petroleum) usage. Also, with lesser usage, the demand may go down and hence, the production cost of oil will also go down.

As it is stated by the reports of global organisations that it is the developed countries which are using oil (and other non-renewable sources of energy) more and hence causing more pollution in comparison to non-developed nations, with lesser usage or sustainable usage of oil across the globe, the degradation of environment will reduce or stop by both set of countries, developed and non-developed. With reduced demand, the prices of the fuel will also go down. With the availability of other better enviornment fiendly options as fuel, the choices of people in personal and household use, industrial use will also change. Their dependency on oil will reduce. As with reduced and sustainable use of oil and more use of better fuel options, people will start observing improvement in the environmental quality. This will change the perception of the people towards more usage of alternate option and less usage of oil. Hence, with these changes, the issues of air quality, ozone depletion will lower down and overall environmental quality will improve.

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