WHS Writing Students in the Spotlight

Students in Dr. Rachel Pienta's 9th grade Writing class at Wakulla High School were asked to write a position essay on an issue that our society faces.  Caleb Fisher chose to write his essay about fossil fuels and their alternatives.  Caleb's paper gives a detailed explanation of why fossil fuels and the economy built around them needs to be examined, as well as a description of the alternatives currently existing and what alternatives will be available in the future.

FOSSIL FUELS

Fossil fuels are a part of almost everyone’s life these days.  Sometimes your entire day revolves around the location of the nearest, cheapest gas station.  Ever since the assembly line was used by Henry Ford to make the motor vehicle, the automobile has been popular.  The Model-T Ford was actually built with an engine that could hold Ethanol or Gasoline.  After gasoline’s price dropped due to availability and the Prohibition of alcohol in the 20’s, Ethanol has lost its popularity.  Even after the Prohibition was lifted, ethanol didn’t become popular.  Gasoline has been the popular and only real choice ever since.  Although our society mainly uses gasoline, there are many down sides to using it.  Environmental pollution is and will continue to be everyone’s problem.  The USA has come to the point of utter dependence on this fuel.  With these things in mind, there are many alternatives that we could use instead of gasoline.

Fossil fuels are fairly energy efficient when burned for the use of cars and electricity.  Although the efficiency is a nice benefit, there is a byproduct when burning fossil fuels.  Burned gasoline gives off carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide.  These gases create smog and increase health problems.  These gasses contribute to the global warming affect, by weakening our ozone layer.  The ozone layer is important to us because it absorbs dangerous Ultra Violet (UV) rays, which harms our DNA.  Increased exposure to these UV rays results making our skin age more quickly, which could lead to skin cancer.  There are also some problems with the gas companies themselves.  But there are more than just environmental problems involving fossil fuels.

Exxon Mobile is the largest Oil Company in the United States according to the most recent quarterly reports.  This company, in October 2006, had the second biggest quarterly profit turn out in October at $10.49 billion.  This was followed closely by BP and Royal Dutch Shell with $7 billion.  Close behind them was Conoco Philips with $3 billion.  The grand total tops out at around $30 billion, in three months.  With this information in view, there is no logical explanation for climbing gas prices.  Remember now, this is profit, not total revenue before expenses. 

We are dependent on oil like never before.  Our dependence on oil has enabled the gas companies to charge what ever they want to charge.  There isn’t any other significant fuel or energy source that actually gives it competition in the markets so in a way all the oil companies are monopolizing our society.  Mysteriously, these companies in the USA have not been forced to pay the royalty or tax on the oil they drill in the USA.  That sounds a little suspicious to me.  Perhaps politics in general is secretly involved with the oil companies financially.  What are some alternatives to fossil fuels that are cleaner and even sometimes more efficient than gasoline?

Recently, the more technologically advanced countries have become more and more aware of their effect on the environment.  More than any other time in the history of the automobile, there are cleaner, greener options.  One vehicle is called a hybrid.  It is a part gasoline and electric motor.  The gasoline motor charges the electric motor when the car is turned on.  This electric motor is used for the 0-40MPH range.  The interesting thing about this motor is that it actually has better pick up than a conventional engine.  When the car comes to a complete stop, the electric motor shuts off automatically, saving the unnecessarily used energy for a better time.  The tailpipe emission of the Honda Civic Hybrid is 116g/km compared to 160g/km on the regular version of the Civic.  The hybrid vehicle still runs on gasoline, but cuts down on the amount of used gasoline.  There is another alternative that has succeeded in other countries.  This is E85 fuel.

Instead of using gasoline as the main fuel source there is E85.  This fuel is a blend between 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.  Not every vehicle can use this high blend of ethanol because of it has a high octane rating.  This means if you wanted to buy ethanol as opposed to gasoline, you have to purchase a flex-fuel-vehicle (FFV).  These vehicles are made to burn any ethanol blend up to E85, but can also run solely off of gasoline.  The emissions of FFVs are also lower than that of a regular gasoline engine.  There are some things that people object to when they hear about alternatives to regular gasoline.

One of those objections is that our society isn’t ready for a change of any sort.  Let’s take Brazil for example.  After the oil crisis in 1973, the Government started a program called, “Pró-Álcool”.  This program was made so that their dependency on oil was lessened, by adding a certain percent of Ethanol in their gasoline.  Only recently have FFV vehicles been available in Brazil, and the demand has grown.  In 2004 the sales were only to 20% of the population and in 2005 it was up to 80%.  Their society adjusted very well to the change, so why can’t the USA change.  The change wouldn’t even have to be towards Ethanol, there are still other alternatives that I’ve yet to mention, including Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Our President, George W. Bush, has recently devised a hydrogen plan.  This plan sets aside $1.2 billion to hydrogen research and development.  A fuel cell works quite differently when compared to a combustion engine.  The pure Hydrogen enters and passes through the anode and the electrons create an electric current.  The hydrogen then meets oxygen in the cathode and completes the cycle.  With multiple fuel cells together (called a fuel stack), the hydrogen can power a vehicle.  This simple process is up to 40% more energy efficient when compared to a combustion engine and the only byproduct is pure H2O, or water.  It is more energy efficient and in time could become less expensive than gasoline.

A major misconception about cars powered by hydrogen fuel is that if you wreck, it will create a huge explosion that could destroy a city block.  Hydrogen is flammable, and has three times more energy than gas when ignited, but something overlooked is the density of Hydrogen.  When a conventional car crashes, the fuel sits in its tank, waiting to be caught on fire.  The density of Hydrogen, though, is very low and is a gas at room temperature.  If the tanks that contain the hydrogen are punctured, the hydrogen gas could escape to the open space.  The hydrogen fuel cell can be safer than gasoline.  Accompanied with the superior performance, the Fuel cell is another solution to our society’s dependence on gasoline.  But there is one more alternative I would like to present, and that is the fully electronic vehicle.

The Electronic Vehicle or EV is a relatively simple concept.  There is a large battery, which acts as it’s “fuel” source.  This battery gives the energy to the motor to function.  Just like when a hybrid motor comes to a complete stop, the EV’s battery supply shuts down to save energy.  On EVs in the past, there is a home charging station connected to an outlet in your garage.  The car hooks up to an outlet at night and by the morning the car is ready to drive.  The only major problem with these vehicles is the driving range.  Because of the bulky battery, EVs have had trouble with achieving a driving range above 100 or 150 miles.  This problem was just resolved by a company out of Silicon Valley, California.  Tesla Motors has just developed an EV sports car.  This sports car goes from 0-60MPH in roughly four seconds and has a driving range of 250 miles.  The emissions of every EV is ZERO.  Zero emissions through the tailpipe of a vehicle are always a good thing.  If more companies start to develop EV programs, this type of vehicle wouldn’t cost $100,000 like the Tesla Roadster.  They might actually be affordable to the general public in the near future.

Looking at the harmful effects the burning of fossil fuels has on the environment, and how much oil companies are taking advantage of the need for fossil fuels, some sort of change needs to be made.  Whether a portion or the entire population buys a hybrid, FFV, Fuel Cell (when available in the future) or EV, something needs to happen with our consumption of oil and our total carbon dioxide emissions.  Whether this actually happens in my lifetime is still up in the air, but something needs to be done before our environment and economy can’t handle it anymore.

- Caleb Fisher, 9th Grade, Wakulla High School

This essay originally published on December 14, 2006.

Written by :

mkwestmark

 

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