Explaining The Long Term Energy Sustainability Plan

Dear Great-Great Grandchildren,

It is of my great pleasure that I address this special letter to my great-great grandchildren. It is of my greatest hope that this letter will ignite a gradual awakening, kindle the utmost sense of consciousness and explore both our natural and artificial energy sources with the highest subconscious to a sustainable development that you too your great-great grandchildren will be proud of.

I would like to start by bringing forth a valid picture of our nation’s current energy situation, reliance on oil, and renewable energy sources available for our people to use. Even though pumped hydroelectric storage constitutes the most of the U.S. overall electricity storage capacity, nonhydro storage has contributed twice the rate in electric power sector capacity ranging from 160 megawatts (MW) to almost 350 MW in the period of the last five years.The production of natural gas from Marcellus shale formation at Appalachian basin rose to 14.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in the month of January 2015, amounting to over 36% of the shale gas production and over 18% of the overall natural gas in U.S. from the data provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), showing for the first time on the monthly data on crude oil rail movements. The new monthly series of oilrail movements entails shipments to and from Canada which has drastically reduced the entire level of the unaccounted volumes in EIA’s balance for each region monthly. The U.S. crude oil production rose by 1.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2014 to 8.4 million bbl/d, marking the largest volume increased since 1900. The output levels showed an increase by 16.2%, being the highest growth rate since 1940. The most volume of the 2014 increase came from tight oil plays in New Mexico, Texas, North Dakota where horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were used in producing oil from shale formations. April 2014 marked when the end of 35 years of shipping propane to upper Midwest from Canada, the Cochin pipeline, repurposed to ship the petroleum liquids to West Canada from Illinois. The country’s exports of fuel ethanol hit second highest level of 826 million gallons in 2014, with the first rating having experienced in 2011 of 1.2 billion gallons.

On the part of renewable energy available, the nation has a number of renewable energy sources. These include; hydroelectric power, biomass, wind energy, solar energy, photovoltaics, solar thermal electric and geothermal energy.

My dear great-great grandchildren, this nation has not found a smooth ride with respect to managing its energy sources. The challenges have been enormous and emanate across the economy. The hurdles have been but not limited to the conventional patterns of the use of energy that have contributed to severe public concerns over the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in connection to the associated societal risks linked to global climate change. The new regulations imposed by the government in California place restrictions and compel companies to improve on their energy efficiency and ensure practices that mitigates climate change and reduce GHG emissions. It is worth I let it known to you that I have personally been affected by the adverse effects of energy emissions which results to specific natural resource constraints, thereby limiting access to supplies of fresh water, and creating difficulty in protecting water and air quality. This is when I became a victim of such contamination and was diagnosed with cholera.

There is an overwhelming side effects of energy consumption practices and without further ado a sustainability plan is an inevitable course that the government will never slag a second before executing. Among the most appropriate sustainability plan that the government would exploit its potential is essentiality of having a comprehensive energy management plans and ensure implementation of actions that increase energy efficiency, conservation and use of alternative energy as likely as possible.That is, the government should develop, publish, and implement a U.S. energy innovation strategy. Such a plan would help companies in reducing risks and costs, adapt to or mitigate climate change, and thus, enhance the sustainability of our day-to-day activities. Though such a plan would have pros and cons.

On the part of the pros; the plan will have a coherent national strategizing framework, inclusive of the whole energy-innovation chain, which integrates support for basic research on the breakthroughs which would sustain energy technologies of tomorrow. The con of the plan is that the system of energy innovation is non-linear, iterative and complex therefore the plan would experience inadequate follow-through and coordination. This is because the policies would call for hard to achieve coordination and cooperation not only among the federal agencies but also the private sector, both parties in Congress, universities, states, among other stakeholders who are critical in formulating and executing such an integrated approach.

The government would employ different ways in which to educate our people on renewable energy and the management of our fossil fuel supply. These approaches would include; organization of forums in which education about energy conservation is discussed and roamed over. Secondly, is the approach through instilling such disciplines within our educational curriculum to educate and encourage students to major in renewable energy disciplines. Thirdly, is the organization of specialized exhibition fairs particularly for the renewable energy concepts, projects and undertakings across the nation to ensure that the public is aware of the government’s course of action with respect to renewable energy and fossil fuel supply, their role as citizens in ensuring a sustainable economy through advanced energy consumption practices.

My dear great-great grandchildren it is worth noting that the government have not slept for a single second when it comes to ensuring that your grandfathers lived in an environment with reduced contamination from energy consumption and thus you too to be able to live in a more better society. This has been seen through the government’s attempts to vastly improve coordination of energy policies across the federal and state governments at a go. For instance, this is shown by the commitment of the current president, Barrack Obama, in taking important step in the mid-December 2008 towards this direction by announcing the creation of a White House Coordinator for Energy and Climate Change in hastening the overall energy-technology innovation efforts.

May God bless you, as you pursue a greener future my great-great grandchildren.

Your loving,

Grandfather.

 

 

 

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