Fight Culprits of Climate Change
Event Location: Cocoa-FL
Competition: Energy Inspired Art
Division: 6-8
School: Orlando Science Schools
Team Name: Eco Orcas
Project Name: Fight Culprits of Climate Change
Team Size: 1
Lets go! Eco Orcas …Protect Our Planet, Stop the Polluters.
There are so many ways to fight climate change. One of the ways is to promote renewable energy and other energy sources so this is what I will express through my essay and vision board.
A picture is known to be worth more than a thousand words, therefore I created a vision board to go along with this essay. I did this due to the fact of how important this issue is and how it needs to be solved.
Essay and vision board prepared by – Samatha Meesala. Grade 6, Orlando Science School.
The sun is an incredible powerful energy source that provides enough energy to give the world enough energy to last a whole year! Of course it wasn’t until 1767 Swiss scientist ,Horace de Saussure, actually found out a way to retain solar power. Before this discovery people have been using and retaining many other different forms of energy to get by in the world. Many of these ways to retain energy and these sources of energy weren’t always effective. They were also not always good for the environment. Over time, scientists have developed cleaner and more sustainable energy solutions that benefit both people and the planet. The best example of this is renewable energy. Not only is it eco-friendly, but it also promotes energy independence. While installing solar panels may have a high upfront cost, the long-term savings on energy expenses make it a worthwhile investment. Additionally, renewable energy can generate the same amount of power as traditional nonrenewable sources, but without the harmful effects. Renewable energy also provides the same amount of energy that you can get from nonrenewable sources. More people using renewable energy sources also mean more jobs opening for designing solar panels and building dams. Different types of sources of energy are solar power as mentioned above, hydroelectric power, marine energy, bioenergy, wind power, geothermal energy, and fossil fuels. All these types of energy could replace the ones that harm the environment.
Non-renewable form of energy :
Before energy was discovered, humanity used animals and wood to serve them. For travel, people used horses, for warmth, the sun or burning wood worked just fine, for plowing fields, farmers used buffaloes and cows. A lot of basic needs were fulfilled mechanically and it could often take a lot of time and energy of humans and animals. Later in the 1700’s-1800’s, Thomas Newcomen and James Watt built a steam engine out of coal. This would be one of the many reasons the industrial revolution started. A few years after the steam engine, the first hydroelectric plant was created. In the late 1800’s petroleum was discovered to be useful and after many more inventions using fossil fuels and coal were created. All of these advancements helped shape the world to what it is today but, it isn’t all that good. Back then people may not have realized that coal and fossil fuels cannot be renewed, but now it is a concern. Nonrenewable energy causes a lot of air pollution. When burning oil or coal, it releases gasses into the air that pollutes it and makes the air less clean for not only us, but other ecosystems that house many animals, some of these being endangered. Another reason nonrenewable energy can be problematic is, we cannot keep relying on these nonrenewable energy sources because at some point, it will run out and we would have little time to find new ways to get by with life. Many stoves use gasoline or coal and most vehicles are powered by coal too. 75% of electricity actually comes from fossil fuels. It is estimated that by 2060, fossil fuels will run out. This means thinking of ways to replace fossil fuels is urgent, thankfully those ways have already been thought of by scientists who came up with wind turbines, dams, solar panels and much more. All that is left to do is to popularize the idea of renewable energy which can be done. It won’t be as simple as many say it to be, but there are so many renewable energy sources that can replace nonrenewable energy sources and have so many more benefits.
Below is the image depicting the culprits of climate change:
Solar Energy :
The sun is a vital source of energy. It provides light and heat which is necessary for the food chain to function, life to exist, and so much more. In the 7th century B.C. humans have used magnifying glasses and the sun’s rays to spark fire. In 1939, Russel Ohl, invented solar cells, the first key step to creating solar panels. Solar energy is a widely known renewable energy source that captures the sun’s rays and converts those rays into Solar power that is used to power houses, satellites, and even calculators. Solar panels are made out of photovoltaic cells which have electrons that get excited when given exposure to light. These electrons then go through a circuit and then get converted to direct current. Solar panels are overall a better choice for us and the planet. It is pretty expensive to get solar panels installed, but it decreases the electricity bill by a margin. If more electricity is produced than consumed, the homeowner or the business owner can cell the energy back to the grid for 0.04 – 0.08 cents per kWh. An average person uses 95 kWh per month and the least solar panels cost for a 2000 sq ft house in Florida is about 8,000 dollars. This all is pretty costly and you would barely be making any money from it but, annually people save about 1,530 $ after the solar panels are installed, due to getting free energy from the sun. Solar panels are also worth it because it helps less greenhouse gas get in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gas has been causing an impact on climate change, making the summers warmer and the winters colder. Climate change has also been causing more extreme weather, such as hurricanes and tsunamis. Helping the earth by getting solar panels installed can help fight climate change, and avoid these expensive natural disasters. Talking in a practical sense, you would need a lot of people to get solar panels installed to actually slow down something as huge as more natural disasters, but that’s all the more reason to convince more people, and get solar panels yourself. There are many government projects looking to battle climate change, the thing is these projects cost about 5.5 trillion dollars every year from 2023 to 2030. The worse climate change gets, the more money will be needed and these are government projects so it could have an impact on the taxes we pay too. Money isn’t that much of a concern compared to the impact on our environment. As I said before, hurricanes and tsunamis will become problems and can cause a lot of damage to properties, and buildings. The carbon dioxide(A greenhouse gas) can increase acidity in the ocean, harming life underwater. Greenhouse gases also disrupt ecosystems, harming wildlife. Warmer summers also mean more ice melting and water level rising, which eventually causes flooding. All of this could happen to earth as we know it and the money that is being spent to install the solar panels could help earth. Knowing this, we could save a lot of money and help the earth by installing solar panels and convincing other people to do so too. The more people that are trying to make an effort, the better.
Hydro-Electric Energy :
Hydroelectric power is attained generally by large scale projects most often done by large groups like city or county councils but they also can be done by homeowners. If you have a property with flowing streams of water that is deep enough, you can build a micro-hydropower dam. The dam pays itself off in 10-15 years and can last for 50-100 years all together. When flowing water is released from a reservoir, from behind the dam, the water spins a turbine that generates electricity from the movement. Like solar panels, a disadvantage of hydroelectric dams is that they are expensive, costing around 3,000 dollars per kilowatt. Hydroelectric dams also can disrupt water flow and interfere with fish migration routes. Dams also mess with water temperature which could interfere with a species living in the water body that the dam is being built in. Keeping these disadvantages in mind we also need to think about some advantages. Hydroelectric energy is an alternative to fossil fuels, and although the altering of waterflow is disrupting fish migration in one water body, it helps protect marine life in a lot more water bodies from the high acidity that is a side-effect from burning fossil fuels. Organizations could also build the dams in a water body that encourages invasive species. It isn’t the perfect plan ever, but it solves a few problems at once. The greenhouse gases that are being released from burning fossil fuels cause acidity in water, not that ideal for species of marine life living in the affected water bodies. Unlike fossil fuels, these power plants don’t emit heat or gas when converted to electricity also, the dams aren’t that hard to maintain. On their own they can survive 50 years with a few checks here and there, they can last even longer with renovations. As I said before, the dam will pay for itself in 10-15 years, so in the next 40-90 years, electricity will be easy to get. Places like Washington and Idaho have lower electricity costs due to the fact that a lot of the electricity comes from dams. Most of the time running water will have a constant flow of water so it would be easy to attain energy from there. In fact, these power plants can get energy to the grid almost immediately, which makes them useful when there are longer periods of power outages. Dams also provide drinking water, an irrigation system, and control the water so it would be less likely to have floods happening. Construction of hydropower also opens up jobs for people. There are many jobs that open up along with the construction of dams. There are also many courses in colleges such as Princeton, that study hydroelectric power. There is another type of energy that involves water moving a turbine but it’s not the same as hydroelectric energy. This type of energy is called tidal power. Hydroelectric energy is when a turbine is turned due to water going downwards from a reservoir. Tidal energy is when high tides and low tides turn the turbine. Some disadvantages of this is, there are few places that there are such high and low tides with enough force to turn a turbine, although places with high and low tides that are too dangerous to swim in could make use of tidal power. Other than this issue, there is also the issue of disrupting ecosystems, but like said before, it is a small price to pay in exchange to have a chance to fight against climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Tidal power is also an on and off kind of energy; it all depends on the gravitational pull of the moon. The tides sometimes aren’t always enough to turn the turbine to generate energy. This type of energy has been proven to be unreliable, therefore it isn’t used much but as this essay has been stated again and again, it is better than the alternative of a world ruined by global warming and greenhouse gases. Another type of energy that involves water and turbines, is wave energy. Wave energy uses the wind creating movement in the water to turn the turbine. This type of energy isn’t used at all because waves don’t show many ways to turn a turbine, but in the future, if we find a way to make use of waves and find more effective ways to use tides to our advantage, we could be a few steps closer to a greener world.
Wind Energy :
In 2022 wind energy was the most used form of renewable energy in the U.S. Wind energy does not have as many environmental setbacks, and it is more cost effective than other sources of renewable energy. The windmill takes 5-8 months to pay itself off and it costs 2-4 million dollars to build. Finding out more ways to make wind turbines more cost effective is a question that has opened up many jobs. The building of wind turbines also opens up many jobs for technicians. Many colleges also open up programs to teach students about wind energy. Wind energy works a lot like hydroelectric power. It involves wind turning a turbine and then a generator converts that energy into electricity. While wind energy has many advantages and has many convenient places to build, it also has some disadvantages. Wind turbines have not been very popular among people who want to preserve wildlife. There are records of birds dying on collision with these turbines, what we could do to stop this is try to make a visually apparent pattern on the wind turbine. Birds have had deadly collisions with windows and to stop this, people have painted spots on the windows, so birds won’t collide with them. We could also do this with wind turbines to solve this problem. Wind energy also has been known as a reason for deforestation. You would need a flat piece of land to actually have the wind turbines built. This problem could be solved by having wind turbines built in places that have already been turned into plains. Having them next to farms or pastures could help solve this problem.
Bio Energy :
Bioenergy has been confused as a nonrenewable energy because it emits carbon but, it isn’t as bad as you think. First to clarify, bioenergy is a renewable energy because it comes from burning plant mass. It does release carbon into the air but the energy source is classified as carbon neutral. This is because plants will be using the carbon for photosynthesis and then the carbon is being released back into the air and it fits into the carbon cycle. Bioenergy is set back with the fact that it is pretty expensive and it requires a lot of electricity. It also costs a lot of resources. Bioenergy has also been noted to cause a number of health complications concerning respiratory and cardiovascular health and it causes a lot of noise for communities that leave nearby these biomass plants. Many studies argue that biomass energy is not as problem solving as other types of renewable energy. Bioenergy is not necessarily the best type of energy alternative to fossil fuels and other sources of nonrenewable energy but it could be used as a backup energy source because the other energy sources are mostly conditional. If the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining one day, bioenergy could be used as a backup.
Geothermal energy:
Heat from the earth will keep on being generated by the core of the earth. Since it is constant, people have found ways to use the heat and built reservoirs of water to get heated up by that thermal energy and then a lot of steam will be produced. The steam will be strong enough to turn a turbine, therefore generating energy. This form of energy doesn’t seem to have much wrong with it. It uses heat from the earth, and the only byproduct is steam, what’s so bad about that? Like many other sources of renewable energy, geothermal energy can cost a lot to get built. Geothermal energy also lets off waste such as sulfur and arsenic. This waste needs to be disposed of properly, otherwise these materials could harm wildlife and the environment. Geothermal energy also uses a lot of water. The water is not only used in the reservoirs, but it’s also to cool the turbines down, to stop them from overheating. Geothermal plants can’t always be in every place possible. Despite all these problems, geothermal energy is still a reliable energy source as long as waste is disposed of properly, this form of energy is mostly harmless to the environment. Geothermal plants also don’t release as much sulfur or carbon either. They release 97% less sulfur than regular fossil fuel plants. As for carbon, 99% less of what comes for fossil fuels is released into the atmosphere. As for the water usage, the water in the form of steam is eventually released back into the air.
Below is the image showing ways to stop the climate culprits.
To summarize all this information, there are so many different types of energy. Some types of energy have more advantages than others, notably most of the renewable forms of energy. This is because renewable energy is faster to regenerate, better for the environment and ecosystems, and they can help increase energy independence and decrease energy bills. Over the years people have found ways to retain energy, and it was a great achievement, except, this type of energy was fossil fuels. People may not have realized it back then, but fossil fuels don’t last forever. We are so reliant on these nonrenewable energy sources, that when they run out, we might be in the dark for a while, literally. Nonrenewable energy sources have been culprits of climate change for a long time, and we can see the effects now. Have you ever had any cold days in the middle of spring, or did you experience abnormally hot days in the middle of summer, that’s climate change/global warming. Burning of fossil fuels is also causing large scale problems, such as floods and other sudden natural disasters and renewable energy is a better alternative. I can’t say that renewable energy sources are perfect, far from it actually. Some forms of renewable energy are bad for health, others just don’t always help us generate electricity. For example, the sun isn’t exactly going to stay out at night or on cloudy days. Other types of renewable energy aren’t always that convenient, but it is a step closer to fighting against climate change. Jobs are opening up to discover more about how we can make renewable energy more eco-friendly and if we spread this message around, more people can help make this earth greener.