The Winding Road to New Energy

Growing up in the mid-2000s, I remember conversations regarding climate change were centered mostly around the adage “reduce, reuse, and recycle”. Being a child, I only understood that the planet was warming up, and this was bad. The uncomfortable truth was, global warming was, and still is, causing destruction that is more and more catastrophic each year.

Greenhouse gases, more specifically, carbon dioxide and methane, are produced when fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil are burned. Typically, massive quantities of these types of emissions come from large factories, and areas of high vehicle density. Hundreds of years of industrialization later, and the earth’s atmosphere has been destroyed by the burning of fossil fuels.

(edf.org)

The major producers of greenhouse gases in the world are led by China, followed by the US, and India.  

While there have been many policies set in place globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the last century, further research and funding is needed to better understand what can be done to ensure we have a safe and habitable world left.

(cleanenergyministerial.org)

 

“Clean” energy as it is often referred to as, is simply renewable energy sources. Typically, this consists of water, wind, nuclear, and solar energy. During the signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, Bill Gates unveiled the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. This group was comprised of wealthy sponsors who planned to invest in early-stage clean energy technologies. Since these new technologies can be implemented in our day-to-day lives the US government should take this initiative as an example to pour more money into clean energy that will reduce greenhouse gases more effectively than any other country.

The key to a low carbon future is in clean energy.

What do we do?

 New technologies in clean energy can refer to solar panels, energy dense batteries, and hydropower. China’s solution to reducing global warming is to mass produce well known technologies such as solar panels. This way, they can reduce the amount of spending required since no new research is being conducted. This lack of funding clean energy is not a centralized issue, governments around the world have reduced their budgets steadily since the 1980s.

The United States government will need to add more funding to research clean energy if the Earth is to have a future. In 2015, funding for private companies in the US to research new technologies was a measly $6.4 billion compared to $13 billion spent on space exploration. It seems the US government is already looking at other worlds to inhabit once we finish destroying this one!

If the US wants to be at the forefront of new technological advancements like they have done several times in the past, they should focus on emerging technologies to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gases.