Nathan Yacobi

Adam Padgett
English 102
January 31, 2017
The Declining Power of Fossil Fuels

The average American will use roughly 900 kilowatt hours of energy this month.

Most people probably do not know what that means but without those kilowatt hours about

everything you did today wouldnt have happened. Not many people have a real concept of

energy. It is like trying to visualize a billion dollars or thinking about just how small our planet is

compared to the rest of the cosmos. You know it is a fact and accept it but the gravity of what it

means really is not understood. Energy makes us but we know surprising little about it. Most of

the energy we use here in South Carolina is produced through nuclear facilities across the state.

We are one of the few so called nuclear states in the nation with 55 percent of our energy

being produced using nuclear methods. For the rest of the country and the world energy used on

a day to day basis is from coal, oil, or natural gas. These are fossil fuels and they drive the world.

In the last few decades as science has allowed us to gleam the effects of using fossil we are

slowly parting ways with the resource that had driven our would for the last two centuries.

There has driven a big push for clean, low carbon energy. Something I am very much an

advocate of. While this easy to say and talk about like energy itself it is so much harder to

visualize. Since people figured out we could burn coal and oil to power machines we havent

stopped. Nearly two hundred years of infrastructure all across the globe based on oil and coal.

Our planet, life as you live today, is built off of fossil fuels. Switching to green energy is a much

easier said than done. The more I learn about energy the more complex I realize it is. Take for

example oil. Everyone knows it is essential to making our cars work and its billion-dollar
industry, but thats just a small part of its importance. The countries and corporations that control

oil have power, oil is a liquid measure of wealth and influence. Fossils fuels have determined the

geopolitical landscape of the world for the last two centuries and surely will for the next couple

as well. I could go on and on about how oil is basis for society. Now imagine that we switch to

system where we had green energy worldwide. The value of oil, gone. The millions of miles of

pipeline crisscrossing the globe, the thousands of oil rigs in the oceans and drilling operations

across all continents obsolete. Getting to that point is not something that happens quick, it is a

long drawn out process to transform our would from an oil based energy to green energy.

The Economist explains

This article is about the economical side of clean energy. Clean energy can only be popular is it

is profitable. The focus of this article is clean energy can become a big business to compete with

fossil fuels. The US government gave out 100 million last year in subsides to clean energy

producers. As new, more efficient, technology is developed more energy can be produced at

lower cost. But can this be done fast enough of offset the damage we are doing to the planet

through consumption of fossil fuels. Bias is present in the article, it is clear the author favors a

switch to green energy but back up claims and bias with facts.

The Economics of Renewable Energy

This article is comparing a renewable energy economy with the traditional fossil fuel economy.

Comparing the growth of very recent green energy technology with the much older fossil fuel

industry. This gives an in depth analysis of what needs to be done by producers and governments

to make renewable energy a competitive alternative to fossil fuels. Through increased private
funding of renewable technology and more government subsidy on clean energy. to This paper

analyzes market trends in an attempt to try and estimate the point in the future where benefits of

renewable energy will outpace those of fossil fuels. There is little bias in this paper, most is just

fact and affect.

Forbes 2000

The company Forbes annually creates list of the most powerful companies in the world. Looking

at ranking from the past decade one can see a decline in fossil fuel businesses. Companies like

Exxon and Chevron are still making massive amounts of money and have lots of influence, but

slowly it is diminishing. In the last year Exxon fell 3 spots on the list and Chevron fell all the

way to number 12. The massive oil company BP, which was in the top 10 prior to the massive oil

spill in 2010, is now somewhere around the 350 mark and has lost billions. Meanwhile green

companies are slowly making their way up the list.

Inquiry

Considering the changing landscape of the energy economy raises many difficult questions. The

only way the world will switch to green energy is if it can be made profitable, can green energy

technology advance enough to be able to compete with fossil fuels and make it a profitable

business? As we progress towards clean energy what happens to all the old fossil fuel based

infrastructure, can it be repurposed? If we are able to phase out our use of fossil fuels how will

that void be filled.

For my next steps I need compare decline in fossil fuels markets with growth in green

energy sectors. There are many countries, mostly in Europe, that have made major strides in

replacing traditional fossil fuels with new energy producing means. Analyzing the affect this

transition has had and how to occurred will be paramount in determining how this could happen

elsewhere.

Works Cited

Gensler, Lauren. "The World's Largest Oil And Gas Companies 2016: Exxon Is Still

King." Forbes, n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2017.

"How renewable energy can become competitive." The Economist Explains. The

Economist, n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2017.