Fossil Fuels In The United States

The usage of Fossil Fuels in the United States has become a very confrontational issue for many decades. In fact, Carbon dioxide, which is produced from the combustion of a fossil fuel, “has increased by about 7% between 1990 and 2013” (Overview of Greenhouse Gases).

This increase in carbon dioxide emissions, which is a greenhouse gas, boosts the temperatures of our environment and dramatically changes habitats. Consequently, this is from daily human activities and by large industrial companies. Luckily, there are many solutions for using and burning fossil fuels and decreasing the amount of Carbon dioxide emissions that are put into the atmosphere with other harmful greenhouse gases.

In the United States, local legislation has made changes

Soar’s share of total U.S. generation capacity now stands at 1.13% – and EIA estimates continued growth across the industry.” (US Solar Energy Capacity Grew an Astounding

418% from 2010­2014). With this in mind, solar energy is creating energy at a rapid rate, while causing no pollution or harmful gases and is not expensive to do. Many states are starting to develop solar energy into their communities and are reducing their dependence on fossil fuels will create change in no time.

Lastly, decreasing the quantity of coal fired power plants and the usage of coal will absolutely benefit our environment and is the best solution. The ways we can do this is by removing coal fired plants and instead create geothermal power plants. To begin with, we must shut down the oldest and dirtiest coal plants that have been around for generations. To illustrate, removing those horrible plants and invest in Geothermal plants will be more green for the environment. A Geothermal power plant gets “heat from within the earth. We can recover this heat as steam or as hot water and use it to heat buildings or to generate electricity.” (Geothermal

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Basics) Usually, the power plants are located in the West and it is a renewable resource

Similarly, According to the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), geothermal heat pumps are the most energy efficient, environmentally clean, and cost effective systems used for temperature control. (Geothermal

Basics) Therefore, geothermal pumps can be used for all types of buildings and stop the usage of fossil fuels. Equally important, Coal is labeled the dirtiest fossil fuel out there and removing it in general will make a difference. As a matter of fact, “Burning coal pollutes our environment with toxins, produces a quarter of U.S. global warming emissions, and accounts for a whopping 80 percent of all carbon emissions produced by power generation nationwide.” (Smart Energy

Solutions: Decrease Coal Use) Even though Coal is very cheap and creates a lot of energy, it is not worth it in the long run.

In conclusion, using wind, sun, and heat from the earth are fantastic solutions to decrease

CO2 emission rates and end the usage of Fossil Fuels. Wind turbines create an insane amount