Transportation Industry'S Shift To Renewable Energy

Over the past few centuries global demand for energy sources have increased dramatically. Mass use of fossil fuels started in the industrial revolution, and because of this, places such as Britain and America gained a massive boost in economy. This was because fossil fuels gave a lot of energy when used while also having a big supply remaining.

After hundreds of years past fossil fuels have still been the main source of energy, but only in the past decade people have been worrying that we’re running out. With fossil fuels making up 80% of the world’s energy source we are using 82.2 million barrels of oil a day as of 2004, however this is set to increase over the next few years. With a rapid increase of human population it is bound to have a higher demand for transport. It is bound to run out at the state we are using it. With transportation using 30% of the world’s energy we will need to find a solution to replace using fossil fuels for energy. Across the world people are scrambling to find something else to replace fossil fuels energy with renewable energy. There are many ways to prevent transportation from using fossil fuels, but are they technologically advanced enough to become the next main fuel source? In this essay I will be reviewing the global and national perspectives of government officials, companies and customers.

Causes and consequences

The first automobile was created in 1889. It used a combustion engine and therefore used fossil fuels. Demand for this new mode of transportation grew quickly as other modes of transportation were just not viable anymore. As time went on new modes of transportation have been made such as trains, planes etc. They all used fossil fuels and with the increase of demand for them in the past few centuries they have been a big cause of global warming and shortage of fossil fuels.

Around the globe the transportation industry has been one of the main sources for carbon emissions released in the atmosphere. This is because the demand of transportation for the everyday person has increased dramatically, people have become more dependent on vehicles. In 1980 the average travel time per journey was 21.7 minutes, in 2014 the average has increased to 26 minutes, that's a 20 percent increase. There is now around 139 million commuters in 2014 and is currently increasing . In 1973 there was a fuel crisis, where fossil fuel prices skyrocketed due to the extremely low supply. This was not because of the shortage of fuels, but instead of war in the Middle East. Here the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC decided to stop exporting oil to the US, cutting the supply of fossil fuels. There was immediate panic all over the country as the OAPEC supplied two thirds of the US fuel consumption. With the low supply of fossil fuels in the US prices went up and so people had to spend more money of fuel, leading to a low demand of other goods. With other companies having low demand they would not be able to make enough money to hire workers, so many lost their jobs. In 1970 the unemployment rate was only 4%, but shot up in the next two years to 6%. With people losing their jobs it only made the recession worse and people had to change their habits it made it feel like everything was a crisis that couldn’t be solved.

The problem with transportation is that they use fossil fuels, this does not just shorten the supply of fossil fuels but also release Carbon emissions. When fossil fuels combust to power transportation they release carbon. Carbon then gets into the atmosphere causing smog and increasing temperature, causing global warming. BP, a gasoline company says that recently with the massive use of fossil fuels it has been taken to account that we are running out of it with only 1687.9 billion barrels is expected to run out in 55.3 years. Many companies around the world are making efforts to improve the current status of renewable energy. Solar Inc (Canada), Crop Energies AG (Europe), First Solar Inc (Arizona), GCL-PolyEnergy (Hong Kong), Gurdian Energy (Beijing), these are only the few of the hundreds, maybe thousands of start-up companies trying to make a difference. With Nemours Governments giving subsidies to these companies it is sure that government officials are willing to help the sustainability of fossil fuels.

Causes of Action

Pollution has been an important subject for China mainly because of its huge amount of pollution. In 2015 more than 50% of the Chinese population has been breathing in unhealthy air due to carbon emissions. A big contributor to the pollution has been the transportation industry, it is approximated that 20-40% of total pollution is from motorcars. As a result of this, Shanghai is now the first ever city to fully electrify their public bus system, with more than 16,000 commuters using the busses. In 2016 when this idea was new to China, they were producing 9500 buses every week, that’s the entire of the London bus fleet. At this rate they are making the demand for oil to go down, the demand for oil goes down by 500 barrels a day. China is doing its part in reducing the demand for oil by just turning one of their transportation systems in one city electric. They also plan to change their taxies electric furthermore saving more fossil fuels. This however is only slowing down the increase of demand for oil, not stopping it.

Tesla, a small private business producing EVs turned mainstream with one new electric car made affordable. With the startup company from silicon valley making up to 51 billion in market value, it is sure that people have taken a turn from combustion engines to electric. With China being the biggest consumer of EVs it is bound for them to be first at innovating this new type of energy and will help Tesla along the way. Electric transportation is currently very popular in big and small cities due to the short travel distances. However in places like Germany with long highways EVs are just not effective there. With Tesla growing at a rapid race, those countries with long travel times should see an increase of EVs. Because of Tesla and other EV manufacturers such as BYD will help with the advancements of alternative fuel sources for cars around the globe. With more and more cars turning electric there will be less combustion of fuel to power cars. This does reduce the demand for fossil fuels, but not stop it. Fossil fuels will still be burned to make electricity for cars and other appliances. However we can replace this by using sources from renewable energy. Currently around 29% of fossil fuels is turned into gasoline for transportation in the United States, and within that fraction 55% of fossil fuels are turned into petrol just for cars. This is because people in the United States heavily rely on their cars to get around long distances. The US generally do not have a great public transportation system away from big cities such as New York. Everything is far away from each other and that means more fuel is needed to travel that far. Furthermore leading up to the increase of demand for fossil fuels. The Government is unwilling to improve the current public transportation system because it is already too expensive to maintain. Bridges, trains have been built in the US for decades meaning that they have been worn out and will need more money to sustain them.

While they can’t be replaced due to the expenses needed to generate a whole new transport system for the country. Public transport is just not expanded enough throughout the country, so the majority of people just takes cars as it is much cheaper and faster. Thus leading to a bigger usage of fossil fuels and making the US the biggest consumer of them. Unlike China, the US must find another way to help reduce the usage of fossil fuels. The government has noted this issue, and they will not improve the current public transportation system. So the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) has been introduced and will hope to innovate with new energy sources. Currently they are analyzing the usage of energy in different parts of the United States. Even though no action to use renewable energy has been made yet, this is a step in the right direction for the US to use less fossil fuels for energy.

Conclusion

If we choose to use renewable energy or not to it is bound for fossil fuels to run out any time. Depending on our decisions it could be sooner or later. If we manage to convert all our transportation to renewable energy, we can expect fossil fuels to last a lot longer. However a lot of money will be spent developing and implementing these long term solutions. It is about 20-50% more expensive than using fossil fuels, but for this price it is worth it to keep pollution down and keep remaining fossil fuels for emergencies. If we continue to use fossil fuels at this rate, we will have to convert to renewable energy no matter what. If this happens we might not have enough time to fully develop technology for electric transport so it may not be viable, or we will need to find a new fuel source in a few decades. Therefore it is much better to start using electric power and use less fossil fuels. This way we will use less fossil fuels while making advancements on electric power.

In my opinion, with the increase of global warming and the shortage of fossil fuels I think that action must be taken to prevent these problems from occurring. In my opinion changing the main fuel source from fossil fuels to electric power will be the best option. This way we can gain power from alternative renewable sources, less fossil fuels will be used and the combustion of gasoline will reduce dramatically. However, it may be very difficult to turn all transport into electric power as obtaining energy from renewable sources is not very effective. Meaning that we cannot collect all the energy, and some will be wasted and not collected. In conclusion the use of fossil fuels is too high and this is creating pollution while also reducing the supply of our main fuel source. As a result we need to find another way to power our lives, and reduce the shortage of fossil fuels. We should focus on transportation first as that industry uses 30% of the global fuel usage. One of the best solutions is to use electric power for transport this way we will not release carbon emissions when travelling, while we can obtain energy from renewable sources. Electric vehicles is the way to power our lives, and the way the future is.