Electricity is an essential factor in the modern world that gives power to almost all technology. The main issue is that electricity has to be created.  Since the 19th century, we have been using coal as the main source of fuel for power plants that create electricity. The burning of coal, however, comes with many environmental ramifications, including the large quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) given off after its combustion. Coal is an example of a non-renewable resource which is a resource that cannot be replaced once consumed. Other examples of non-renewable resources include natural gas, lignite, oil, and uranium (nuclear fission). When using non-renewable resources to generate electricity, it contributes to the phenomenon occurring currently: global warming. The CO2 and other greenhouse gases given off from the combustion of non-renewable resources traps heat within Earth and causes the Earth to exponentially warm up over time. When the issue of global warming is brought up, many people ask themselves the question, "Why should I care?" The reason the whole world needs to care is because if we do not cut down carbon emissions in the near future, we are going to face major environmental changes such as the melting of all glaciers, increasing sea levels, extreme weather patterns, increasing global temperatures, and many more arising issues. A solution available to the world that will effectively lower greenhouse gas emissions is converting to renewable energy. A large percentage, over thirty percent, of CO2 emissions comes from power plants using non-renewable resources. This percentage could be dramatically lowered by integrating the use of renewable energy, primarily wind and solar energy, in the production of electricity in power plants. 

When looking into the issues surrounding the use of non-renewable resources in power plants, it's not hard to understand that large modifications must be made. For instance, coal is a widely used non-renewable resource in power plants. When coal is combusted in these plants, a substantial amount of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere. On average, a typical coal-fired power plant will emit up to 3.5 million tons of CO2 a year. Along with CO2, the pollutants sulfur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), lead, cadmium, traces of uranium, mercury, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and arsenic are released. As a result of this toxic air pollution, smog and acid rain can easily form in a nearby area of either woods or cities. Smog can cause acid rain and respiratory issues, and acid rain can cause significant damage to buildings and plants (Coal power: air pollution). Another non-renewable resource used for the production of electricity is lignite. In Turkey, approximately 40% of power plants use lignite as their power source. Lignite is a non-renewable resource found in abundance around the world, similar to coal. On the other hand, it is a much dirtier non-renewable resource when examining its properties upon combustion. When combusted in these plants, lignite will emit SO2 which is extremely harmful to the wildlife and nearby populated areas. SO2 is harmful to humans and can irritate our respiratory systems, often times causing illnesses and infections. In the year 2001, 2.1 million tons of SO2 was emitted from power plants in Turkey (Say 2690-95).

Many places around the world, ironically including my hometown, use nuclear energy. The process to create nuclear energy, nuclear fission, results in a radioactive waste that is basically impossible to get rid of. Also this process is very dangerous because it puts the nuclear plant at risk of a nuclear meltdown. In 2011, a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan had a meltdown resulting from an earthquake and spilled large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere (Kunzig). Due to that incident, Germany, a country that contains many nuclear plants, has started a movement to shut down all nuclear power plants and switch entirely to wind and solar energy. This movement is called energiewende. Germany has converted almost 27% of its energy to renewable energy and plan to cut its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The Chancellor of Germany is also planning to terminate the 17 nuclear reactors in the country by 2022 (Kunzig). A mistake the Germans are making however, is their continued use of lignite. Germany is the world's largest lignite extractor in the world. A lignite mine in Germany, the Welzow-Sud mine, withdraws approximately 22 million tons of lignite from the lignite rich area a year. Lignite is one of the dirtiest non-renewable resources there is, so if Germany continues their use of lignite they will not be able to reach their goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Setting lignite aside, Germany has a promising future. They plan to create many offshore windfarms to help generate one-third of its wind energy. To help move this generated electricity around the country, the government also plans to create two power lines stretching across the country (Kunzig). The United States is starting to develop plans for the future to cut down carbon emissions and do something about climate change, but no one in the world is going as far as Germany right now. Germany is a model for the world to start going by because of their devotion to cut down its carbon emissions. The United States specifically needs to start following in the footsteps of Germany's plans and current actions to reduce their emissions. The reason the United States needs to take action as soon as possible is because we alone contribute roughly a quarter of the world's carbon emissions. United States Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and her staff released an environmental edict making different points in what the United States needs to do in order to cut down carbon emissions. In the edict, it discusses how climate change is affecting the health of people, how power plants will be using new technologies in order to meet the requirements for carbon emission standards, the fuel economy in cars will need to be substantially improved, and the switching to natural gas in many power plants to cut down carbon emissions will need to be done (Lavelle).

There are many methods of renewable energy that are known to us today: solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, tidal, nuclear, wave, and coal-carbon capture and storage (Jacobson 148). When it comes to using renewable energy in power plants, however, your best options are solar and wind energy. Wind and solar energy are both our best options when integrating renewable energy into the production of electricity because they are the most common forms of renewable energy, and also the most developed and advanced5. Wind energy is most often seen by the use of wind turbines. The blades of these turbines are connected to a shaft, and the shaft is connected to a generator. When the wind moves the blades, the shaft rotates which then powers the generator, creating electricity that we can use (Jacobson 150). In the United States, many wind farms that can contain hundreds of wind turbines are located in the Midwest due to the flat ground and wide open fields. I believe in the near future we should start building offshore wind farms- similar to Germany-in order to catch the steady, constant drift of oceanic winds on our east coast, west coast, and Gulf of Mexico coast. 

Solar energy is created from two different methods- concentrated solar and photovoltaic. When using concentrated solar power, light is reflected off of mirrors to focus on a tube full of fluid that can be heated to extremely high temperatures (Jacobson 150). The heated liquid flows to an engine that absorbs a fraction of the heat from the liquid to generate electricity. For photovoltaic solar power, thousands of small cells containing a component that will change energy from photons of light into electric current (Jacobson 150). The use of solar panels is widely used across the globe already, and is increasing. I believe each state in the United States should be required to have a set number of solar energy farms in order to generate a viable amount of energy. Many people would consider this idea very questionable, but I believe it could be done. Every state has land available that could be used as a possible solar energy farm. The next president of the United States will have to bring the topic of global warming into discussion to hopefully make this happen. The advantages that come along with using wind and solar energy are that it is inexhaustible, gives off no emissions of greenhouse gases, and it is relatively cheap, considering wind and sunlight are free (Clean Line Energy).

Just like every argument, there is going to be two sides. In this case, the opposing idea to my claim is that the use of wind energy and solar energy have negative environmental impacts. One claim they declare is that wind turbines take up too much land (Environmental Impacts of Wind Power). To oppose this point, it is easily understood that, depending on which region of the country we are talking about, the integration of agriculture is easily done. Some wind farms in the Midwest of the United States are planted in the heart of some of the biggest fields of crops in the country. Other wind farms are placed in the far west of the country, where the soil is infertile and crops cannot be grown. If in the future the United States begins to build offshore wind farms to harvest the coast's large availability of wind energy, people will oppose that thought and claim that it will take away from many tourist's activities such as fishing, boating, and sightseeing. If and when the United States does this, the companies that build these wind farms will be sure to keep them away from very popular beaches and more around the areas of coastline that are less populated. Another claim made in this opposition is that the use of wind energy will harm ecosystems and organisms in certain areas. It has been discovered that there have been deaths of bats and birds near wind farms in the United States. Aside from the fact that yes, it is sad to hear that a small quantity of bats and birds have died, the number of those organisms killed neither threats the species' population nor affect their behavior (Environmental Impacts of Wind Power).

 The opposition towards solar energy is very similar. The claim is that solar energy takes up too much land to the point where it can deteriorate the land take up too much space to the point where it will negatively affect habitats and ecosystems (Environmental Impacts of Solar Power). If you look at the location of many solar panels and the fact that a large percentage of them are located on the roofs of buildings, you can understand that this isn't an issue. Although it does in fact require a large tract of land to create a solar energy farm, many of these areas are located in areas of infertile soil, such as desert. Others are located in old land that was once used for mining or in electric fields, places where large power lines run. Also, future solar energy farms are planned to be placed in areas like that. The second major claim put upon solar panels is the idea that the materials used to create them are dangerous and can harm the environment. 

"The PV cell manufacturing process includes a number of hazardous materials, most of which are used to clean and purify the semiconductor surface. These chemicals, similar to those used in the general semiconductor industry, include hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and acetone. The amount and type of chemicals used depends on the type of cell, the amount of cleaning that is needed, and the size of silicon wafer [4]. (Environmental Impacts of Solar Power)"

Yes, the materials used in the production of certain types of solar panels are dangerous, but companies do what it takes to insure that no materials are wasted and that they are recycled (Environmental Impacts of Solar Power).

In order to have a cleaner and more environmentally friendly future in the area of renewable energy, we must take steps in schools and universities about the education of renewable energy. Currently, many engineering classes in universities around the United States are educating their students about global warming and the science behind it, but not so much about the science behind renewable energy. 

"Education has a vital role to play in the development of a sustainable society. It is a powerful agent of social change, it raises awareness of new developments, it provides training for the professionals and it trains researchers who will develop the next generation of systems and devices. (Jennings 436)"

The future of this Earth and our environment are in the hands of currently enrolled college students and their educators. They will be the ones discovering and innovating the newest, advanced technology that will protect our planet from being harmed further than it already has from the current technology that is pumping millions and millions of tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere every year.

In a Ted Talk by Armory Lovins, he discusses a 40-year energy plan that involves the abandonment of our reliance on inefficient oil and coal, and completely converting to the use of the more efficient and environmentally friendly use of natural gas and renewable energy. He predicts that this will be an estimated five trillion dollars cheaper than using oil and coal as our main energy sources. He also predicts that the use of renewable energy sources could support a one-hundred and fifty-eight percent bigger economy all without the use of coal, oil, or nuclear energy. All this can be done without an act by congress and led by private business sectors to make a profit. By integrating the four energy consuming sectors- transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity- and the four different methods of innovation-technology, policy, design, and business strategy- together, we can make this happen (Lovins).  

As illustrated, the need for us to start integrating the use of wind and solar energy into power plants is significantly necessary. The Earth is prone to rapidly changing, and it is occurring as we speak. Engineers all around the globe are working and studying hard to bring change to the methods of our energy production currently. This issue is particularly important to me because I am a Mechanical Engineering major and I want to help in this cause to help save the planet from climate change. I'm not exactly sure what direction I am going yet, but all I know is that one day I will be working with either automotive engines to make them more environmentally friendly, wind turbines to increase energy production, the production of solar panels, or the use of wind or solar energy in power plants. It is time for the world, and this country to take action and work together to cut down these carbon emissions and save the planet. 

