Renewable Energy What would happen to our world if our energy unexpectedly disappeared? Fossil fuels are very important to our world because they provide an overwhelming majority of our world energy. This paper confronts this question with a balanced view attempting to address the issue of what sources might provide energy in the future and come to an objective conclusion. As the world enters a new century, new sources of energy such as wind and solar power need to be developed to help the world keep running on all cylinders. With the development of these new energy sources, our world would become a cleaner place and the energy crisis would straighten itself out. Today, the world uses an astonishing amount of energy. Whether it is in the form of unleaded gas from the local filling station or electricity from the local coal power plant, the truth is most energy comes from a non-renewable source. “When it comes to types of fossil fuels, petroleum provides almost 40 percent of the energy used in the world. Coal is the other main source of the world's energy and provides almost 30 percent of the energy consumed in the world. (Mathewson, p. 277). As you can see here, almost 70% of our fossil fuel use comes from petroleum and coal.
Modern culture seems to care little about the amount of energy used and what effects it might have on the environment. Energy use per person has been increasing since the early 1900's. “In 1990, the average American used 2.2 short tons of coal a day” (Mathewson, 1999). An amazing fact is that the average global amount per person is only 11.2 short tons of coal a day. These figures convert into the fact that the United States contains only 5 percent of the global population, but consumes 25 percent of the world's energy. The amount of energy used in the United States alone poses a problem when looking at alternative energy sources.