Greenemeier, Larry “Crude Alternatives: Energy Industry Debates Fuels of Future.” Scientificamerican.com. 28 September 2010.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fuels-of-the-future"
This article by Larry Greenemeier deals with the concerns of how society will shy away from using fossil fuels. In the article he describes the different alternatives that are “viable” replacements and how industry leaders such as ExxonMobil and Shell view them as alternatives. Mr. Greenemeier starts off the article by recalling the disaster that occurred in the Gulf Coast this past year, and from there he hints that we are looking for alternatives to these fossil fuels in natural gas, solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and biofuel. Greenemeier then shows the viewpoints of these two titan companies concerning these leading alternatives. Predictably, ExxonMobil favors a boost in the United States’ consumption of natural gas “in part, because it produces at least 50 percent less greenhouse gas per hour when burned compared with coal,” but also because “Exxon has a major investment in natural gas as one of its largest global producers.” Greenemeier also explains how Exxon is involved in developing ways to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale Formation in the Appalachian Basin. Nazeer Bhore, the senior technology advisor for ExxonMobil suggests that, “Shale gas will revolutionize energy in this country in the short term.” The argument against using natural gas is that the fracking process used to capture natural gas could threaten underground water basins that are used for human consumption. Both wind and solar power had their respective advantages but with wind being seemingly inefficient due to changes in wind patterns throughout the world and the price of changing to solar power both seem like poor alternatives to the crude oils we are using today. Nuclear power is also described as a dying breed as “After decades of steady growth, however, nuclear power generation has actually declined in recent years as plants have been shut down and construction has been delayed on new plants. It is also an expensive process to start up. Finally the other option that makes the most sense aside from natural gas is the use of Biofuel especially algae. Both ExxonMobil and Shell are interested in this technological alternatives, but the con for this replacement is that it seems, at best, to be a supplement to gasoline and diesel rather than something that could replace these fuels.
I chose this article because I thought it was a very interesting topic and having been in Environmental Science last year it was very near and dear to my heart. Another reason why I chose this was because it was extremely relevant, concerning what had happened in the Gulf Coast this past year, and as climate change and diminishing fossil fuels becomes a greater and greater issue we, as a society, are forced to find alternatives though none of the ones presented seem like a long term viable change. There will always be an issue with these alternatives. Natural gas, though it may be a short-term solution, is non-renewable as well as a possible threat to drinking water. Solar, Wind, and Nuclear power all seem like they could possibly be renewable alternatives. The only problem is that these alternatives are either inefficient or too costly. One alternative that seemed like it could be a solution is Biofuel. The experts, however, believe that at best this fuel would be a complementary fuel to gasoline or diesel.
I liked this article a lot because it presented the facts for the reader which is a good presentation, but I believe that it is pretty simple for a writer to take a stern viewpoint on this issue especially because it is hard to argue against finding energy alternatives. The other criticism that I have for this article comes from the fact that besides presenting the facts the average reader wouldn’t really understand what some processes were. The only exception to this in my mind was when Greenemeier lightly described the nuclear fission process. Although he did make it easier to understand, and I don’t expect him to fully explain the process, nuclear fission isn’t as simple as heating water that makes steam that turns a turbine. However, for the educated reader this article was very well done as are most from Scientific American.
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4 comments:
Jack Deasy
In this review there were a couple of things that were well presented. I believe that the part of the article that was best presented was the part where Henry talks about how each different type of energy can be an alternative. The reason is that he says, that most people think of alternative energy as wind and solar power and not bio fuel. Because of this we realize that the most practical new alternative energy source bio fuel. This is very surprising to me because also, like Henry when I think of new alternative energy sources I think of wind and solar power. I also like how Henry refers back to the article using quotes. The reason is that when he is explaining something about the article he shows us what part of the article he means by using a quote. For me, this makes it much easier to read an article. Finally, I think that he does an excellent job at explaining all the other different types of energy sources. Not only does he state which one is the most viable energy source, he states which ones aren’t and why. This is I believe one of the best things he could have done for this article.
I think there are a few part of his summary that could use some work. For example, in the second and third paragraphs he could have used some varying sentence structure. He tends to have the sentences sound the same and it really makes such a great article sound much more dull then it really is. He also, doesn’t have many transition sentences. It would be a much smoother read if he gave a bridge to the next paragraph.
From this article I learned that bio fuels are likely going to be the next alternative energy source.
Austin Engros
1. He says in a very strong but brief way which is easy to understand the different possibilities we have to overcome the use of fossil fuels and other non renewable resources.
2. He explained how the use of biofuel and natural gas in the future will only be a supplement to gasoline and won’t be able to completely take over because there is not enough of these supplements and they are not strong enough to stabilize the economy. He explained this topic very well in few words so that it was easy to understand. Sometimes this can be a very challenging subject and Henry made it seem simple to learn.
3. He explained the differences in the different alternatives well and explained why certain ones would not work and why some could be a strong possibility for the future.
1. It could have been better if he went a little bit more into detail about natural gas energy works and why a source like wind power is really not that good of a source of energy.
2. I wish he could have said how long and expensive it would be and take up to gain power and implant some of these new alternatives.
1. I did not know that the process that was used to capture natural gas could threaten underground water basins that are used for human consumption. This is a terrible fact that I learned, but at the same time it is very interesting and intrigued me to keep reading.
Henry wrote a great review on the article by Larry Greenemeier. The article was about how society will shy away from using fossil fuels and he did a good job at explaining the original issue. He then did a good job explaining how they wanted to solve the issue. Also, I learned the outcome and the effect. Reading the original article would have been confusing to understand a lot of what Larry Greenemeier was talking about but Henry was able to explain it in a more understanding matter. I really liked how he discussed an alternative for fossil fuels, such as natural gas and biofuel. If I wish Henry would have further explained the biofuel idea because I found this interesting and wanted to know more about it. Other than that, I don’t think he could’ve done anything else to make the review better. After reading this review, I learned that Exxonmobil and Shell are interested in technological alternatives which I found very interesting.
I felt that Henry’s article was written very well and gave a lot of information on the topic really helping the reader learn what he the article is all about. Also, I liked how he talked about the nuclear power being a dying breed because he’s showing what is really happening after we had all thought that nuclear power would be the main source of energy in the world to come. It was also very well written in the sense that he presents different arguments against different topics to get the point of the article across to the reader.
Henry could have stayed more with just the points that are important to the article, which would have made the article much easier to read and more brief and to the point with no extra information which throws off the reader’s attention. Another thing that could have been improved was that he could have mentioned more where the money for these materials will be from and where the materials themselves will be produced.
I found it very interesting that Henry talked about how the shale could be used as for energy and fuel, except for the fact that the natural gases could affect the environment and underground water basins, which would make drinking water unsafe for humans. I had thought that that would be the easiest and most efficient way of energy right now, but if it harms the environment too much then it’s not worth it.
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