Alternative Energy and Hybrid Cars

Alternative Energy and Hybrid Cars

This is a time of crisis. The American public, and the entire world for that matter, is at a crossroads. The humans that inhabit the planet called Earth have gradually over the last hundred years destroyed the environment through the use of fossil fuels. According to Christopher Flavin, the use of fossil fuels has caused " impoverished lakes and estuaries, degraded forests, and millions of damaged human lungs." (Flavin et al. 20) Also according to Flavin, "Fossil-fuel combustion is at the same time adding billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, an inexorable escalation that must end soon if we are not to disrupt virtually every ecosystem and economy on the planet." (Flavin et al. 20) Because of the dire position the world is in the citizens of the Earth need to take a stand for conservation of the environment by integrating several different energy solutions into their everyday lives.

The first way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that are produced would be to use an alternative car such as a hybrid car. Hybrids are cars that twice as efficiently as conventional automobiles by using an electric motor in tandem with a conventional internal combustion engine. (Electric Vehicles) These never need to be plugged into the wall because they generate power themselves through the conservation of kinetic energy when the vehicle comes to a halt. (Electric Vehicles) At speeds below thirty-five miles per hour the vehicles run entirely on the electric motor. At speeds above thirty-five miles per hour, the internal

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combustion engine kicks in, and they work together. (Electric Vehicles) Hybrid vehicles are popular, but not popular enough to cancel the effect of carbon dioxide emissions. They are too expensive right now, so not as many people are buying them as would if they were similar in price to their conventional counterparts. (Woodyard)

Initially the only hybrids on the road were the two-seat coupe the Honda Insight, and the four door sedan the Toyota Prius, but now several new hybrids have hit the market including the Honda Accord and Civic Hybrids, Ford Escape Hybrid, and even a Chevrolet Silverado hybrid.

Another form of transportation which reduces the amount of harmful emissions like carbon dioxide is Electric Cars. Electric cars work exactly as they sound. They use a small but strong electric motor to propel the vehicle forward. They are more efficient that conventional vehicles because the motor is directly connected to the wheels, which means that it consumes no energy at rest or coasting. The electric motor converts over ninety percent of the energy produced into motive force, the force that propels forward, while conventional gasoline powered vehicles use only twenty-five percent of the force. These vehicles do not have the ability to charge themselves, and must be plugged into a wall to charge. This is the cause of the low popularity of the electric powered vehicles.

According to Tom Barry, "Electricity-powered vehicles are two to three times more

energy efficient that their internal combustion counterparts. And given that transportation

accounts for more that sixty five percent of the U.S. oil consumption and that more than

half of the oil is imported, a transition to electric transportation will increase national

energy security." (Flavin et al. 172)

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This says that because so much of the United State's energy spending goes toward transportation, if a large portion of Americans switched from their dirty internal combustion vehicles to clean running electric ones the United States would greatly reduce its dependency on foreign oil.

Thirty-five percent of the energy consumed in the United States is not used for transportation. There are several ways which could potentially conserve more energy, and reduce the environmental dangers of global warming.

People are becoming more concerned with the environment that we live in. Due to this increased concern, people are turning to energy sources that do not harm our environment, and are more effective than the harmful fossil fuels that are used today. For example, "During the 1990s, wind power has grown at a rate of twenty six percent per year, while solar energy has grown at seventeen percent per year. During the same period the world's dominant power source -oil- has grown at just one point four percent per year." (Flavin et al. 21)

Wind as a source of power has been used for centuries by people from all over the world. Wind is a very clean source of energy. The only drawback is