Unnatural Disasters Research (Essay Sample)

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Energy Sources
Question 1.
What are some of the benefits and consequences of the use of energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, solar, or wind?
There are some advantages to the use of natural energy sources. They include the following: It is easy to store and transport natural gases as it is easy to preserve than other fuels. It can be stored as well as carried through the use of pipelines, tankers on land or sea. The other benefit is that energy source like natural gas burns without leaving any smell, ash or smoke thus considered to burn cleaner. Use of the wind or solar energy to generate electricity helps improve public health and environment quality as they are not associated with any kind type of air pollution emissions. Also, use of wind and solar as the energy sources tends to become more reliable and resilient energy system as they are less prone to large-scale failure with the reason that they are distributed and modular CITATION Bot \l 1033 (Botkin).
There are some consequences that arise from the use of energy sources such as the wind, or solar. Use of wind power has an environment impact. One of the impacts is in land use resulting from wind energy facilities that varies substantially depending on the site. For example, wind turbine positioned in flats regions consumes more land in comparison to those located in hilly areas. The other consequence of the use of energy sources is in public health and community whereby sound and visual effects are the two primary public health and community concerns usually associated with operating wind turbines.
Question 2.
What are some of the difficulties that exist from the following:
* Fossil Fuel Mining and Extraction
Difficulties that exists from fossil fuel mining and extraction includes the following: one of the difficulty is the environmental hazards whereby pollution to the environment is one of the main challenge resulting from the mining of fossil fuels. The other difficulty is in coal mining whereby extraction of coal from areas that have enormous reserves is not only a challenge but also a risky task as it is commonly associated with severe health hazard to the lives of the workers working there.
b. Fossil Fuel Transportation
A difficulty that usually exists on fossil fuel transportation is the impact on the aquatic life of the oil spill. When transporting fossil fuels to the plants where they a processed by the use of the ship, sometimes the oil tankers do leak getting a ship drowned deep under the sea. Since crude oil comprises of some toxic substances which when mixed up with water causes serious effects of aquatic lifeCITATION Kar \p 5680 \l 1033 (Kargbo 5680).
c. Coal vs. Natural Gas burning for energy or heat
The fact that natural gas is highly toxic and flammable becomes a difficulty in the use of it for heating as its leaking may cause explosions or fire. Also when inhaled, then gas is normally very toxic. Alternatively, use of coal has a health challenge like respiratory effects. For example, burning coal contributes to smog through the release of oxides of nitrogen that reacts with unpredictable organic compounds in the presence of sunlight to form ground-level ozone.
d. The storage disposal and handling of the byproducts of coal production and use
Burning of coal wastes contains various toxic compounds such as uranium and thorium. In the storage of coal waste usually comprises a non-clear plan to render waste safe, implying that they are default plan to store waste for a very long time which eventually is tough to accomplish.
e. Nuclear Waste Disposal
When disposing nuclear waste, there is a challenge in that there are high level of radioisotopes present in the nuclear waste that emits significant amount of radiation and have extremely long half –lives that requires long time before the waste settles to safe level of radioactivity.
f. Finding Energy Sources with Lower CO2 Emissions
The difficulty in trying to find sources of energy with lower carbon IV oxide emission is that co2 is found in fossil fuel that is tough to reduce its usage as most people prefer this fossil fuel as they are cheap.
Question 3.
What were some of the social, environmental, economic, and political effects of the Tennessee Valley Authority Coal Sludge Impound Disaster of 2008?
There was massive destruction of homes where people were displaced from their homesteads. There was also down felling of trees, pushing of boats from the docks, washing out of roads and railway, also ruptured a major gas line, broke down a water main, and ripped down power lines. Due to the spill in December 2008 TVA’s has spent so much capital to clean up the spill as well protect the public health and safety thus affecting the economy.as a result of how energy interests have kept coal ash from being regulated as a dangerous waste as well as the looming battle in Washington to amend how coal ash is treated is now under law.
Question 4.
Describe any activists/ political groups that exist advocating for and or against the use of coal.  What are their motivations and conclusions?
The Canadian Coalition is one of the activist group that is against the use of coal. It is a national activist organization that focuses on clean air movement whereby it focuses on the fight for higher air quality in the regions of the great smoky mountain. This activist group is working hard to ensure it preserves their fresh mountain air against the degradation as a result of coal-burning power plants as well as other environment polluting sourcesCITATION Sad \p 40 \l 1033 (Sadler 40).
Citizen’s Coal Council is the other activist group that is against the use of coal. It is a federation of grassroots member groups when it comes to the coalfields of the United States. Its motivation is to build citizen power to challenge and change the environmental practices of the coal industry. Its members are impacted on working on every level and stage of the coal cycle.
Question 5.
Describe any activists/ political groups that exist advocating for and or against the use of Nuclear energy.  What are their motivations and conclusions?
There are some activist groups that oppose the use of nuclear energy. One of the activist group is Abalone Alliance.it was formed with an aim of completely shutting down the pacific gas and electric company’s Diablo Canyon power plant. This activist group had the motivation of building a nuclear power plant in US miles away from the offshore use of nuclear. Their conclusion was to build a diablo canyon reactor facility that was located about 2.5 miles offshore from the Hosgri fault.
Clamshell Alliance anti-nuclear group is the other activist group against the use of nuclear energy. It was concerned with the nuclear hazards in the United States. The activist group was motivated the nuclear weapon policy that may have adverse effects resulting from the atmospheric nuclear testing. Its conclusion was to ensure that all the people exposed to the hazards of fallout that resulted from atmospheric nuclear testing to be compensated for by giving them some money.
Question 6.
What are the geological origins of coal, oil, and natural gas?
There are so many suggestions about the origin of hydrocarbons such as oil and natural gasesCITATION Ola \p 2635 \l 1033 (Olah 2635). It is believed that the geological origins of coal, oil, and natural gas are the primordial and metastable compounds that are from high pressure and temperature surroundings deep inside the earth. Various theories suggest that this volatiles were trapped on the planet at the time of accretion processes, and normally there were the very vast amount of hydrocarbons with the planet earth.
Question 7.
Are fossil fuels a sustainable energy source? Think of two things economics and the environment.  Are these two competing interests or can they create the same goals?
Fossil fuels can never be a sustainable source of energy for the reason that the moment they are burnt to produce energy, they typically create massive levels of greenhouses gases that generally leads to human impact on the global climateCITATION Lew \p 15732 \l 1033 (Lewis 15732). The economic reason as to why fossil fuel cannot be ...