Energy Usage
Just a quick letter addressing some of the issues regarding energy usage in the US, as well as some potential solutions, along with the pros and cons.
Dear Future President,
Energy usage is a very big problem in the US, and it always has been. The United States is the leading country in energy wasted, which is not something to be very proud of. With the current amount of oil left on the planet, there is barely enough to sustain the country for another 40 years. Even though this is only counting oil energy, there is still a lack of renewable energy that is available for use. Most renewable sources of energy just don't have the power to power an entire country, without spending a lot of money. However, there are potential solutions.
An average household in the US uses about 901 kW/m (Kilowatts per month), which is equivalent to about 900 hours of sustained electricity use, which doesn't make sense when you do the math, but if you factor in many other situations that could take place, that is almost equivalent to sustained electricity for a month. Take this for every household in the US and you have a lot of energy used every year.
A potential solution would be to just turn off the lights after using them, or turning the water off when you brush your teeth, or even turning down the temperature a few degrees in your house. The only thing wrong with this is it's quite difficult to spread the word and make people listen. Another possible solution would be to slowly convert to other methods of generating electricity. For example, we could convert to using wind energy, which is a renewable resource. Some more examples of possible energy sources are solar energy, hydropower energy, even nuclear energy if you want to go that far. Also, these energy sources are all renewable resources. The only problem with these solutions is that they would cost a lot more money that using coal or oil, and most of these are just not as effective. Just to show, hydropower only takes up 13 percent of all energy usage in the US. Solar energy would be a good option, but it has minimal use during the night. Hydropower would cost lots of money because of the amount of dams we would need, and they are very dangerous to build.
After reading all this, I hope you at least think about some possible solutions for the future.
Sincerely,
Asher F.
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