Question

Imagine that you are listening to a presidential debate and the topic of energy policy is brought up. Three possible viewpoints are presented: (1) the government should not interfere with energy choice and allow the free market to dictate which energy products are used, (2) non-renewable fossil fuels that produce more carbon emissions and harmful byproducts should be taxed to reflect their true environmental costs and the proceeds should support environmental clean-up efforts, and (3) producers of renewable energy should receive tax breaks to better compete with producers of non-renewable energy that are currently less expensive. Which of the three strategies would you support and why?

Answer 1

In this debate the third starategie should be supported that is - Producers of renewable energy should receive tax breaks to better compete with producers of non-renewable energy that are currently less expensive.

Before gooint to the topic lets see what are these two sources of energy .

Non-renewable sources of energy :- The title itself makes it clear are that these are the sources of energy which can not be refilled or replaced easily by natural processes at the same rate as they are exhusted. In other words, once these fuels are used or burnt to provide energy, they are lost they cannot be “renewed”. Due to this there will be a day in which we will be out of this source of fuel , as these are extensively used by mankind for all sorts of activities like used in industry , for domestic purpose in vehicles etc.. Examples of fossil fuels are coal, petroleum oil and natural gas, these are all natural resources and created within the Earth million years ago.

Renewable source of energy- Renewable energy sources are the types of alternative energies, which can be renewed or refilled by the natural and continuous processes of the Earth, like sunlight from the sun or wind from the air, current from sea waves, etc.and these are environmentally friendly.

Humans heavily depend on fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources for their energy requirements. But world’s global supply of non-renewable energy source is limited and their use negatively affects our environment as well. The main component of fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas is carbon. The chemical reaction takeing place when we burn non-renewable fossil fuels ,releases a lot of harmful gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide etc and are released into the atmosphere.

This carbon dioxide gas is a greenhouse gas which is believed to be damaging the Ozone layer covering the Earth, and protecting it from harmful ultraviolet rays. In due course, so much carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere that it has started to trapping the heat around the Earth and created a condition called global warming which is responsible for climate change.

Also, the use of nuclear power, oil, gas and coal produces a lot of waste products, polluting the environment. they produce toxic smoke which pollutes the air and causes global warming, at the same time energy obtained from nuclear power produces radioactive wastes, which leads to environmental disasters and cause many deadly diseases like cancer.

Besides being ecofriendly renewable energy sources will not perish in due course of time and can be replaced in a short period of time and they can be used again and again. They can be a better alternative of energy resource as compared to Non-renewable resource of energy, but the main challenge lies in using the renewable source of energy is its cost effectiveness , they have more production cost as compared to the non-renewable source of energy .Because usually sites are usually far from the big cities ,which makes them expensive to connect. And many times the common types of renewable generators only produce power intermittently that is when the sun shines or when the wind blows. Wind turbines, for example, spin only about a third of the time. That means countries which have a lot of renewable generation must still pay to maintain traditional kinds of power stations ready to meet the demand in peak period.

At the same time the renewable sources are more cheaper and easily available so production cost is less . so buyers are more, but the resource is limited, before it perishes we got to choose the alternative source of energy that is renewable source of energy like energy from wind, sunlight, ocean waves and from geothermal enegy production should be increased , this can be enhanced by supporting the prodcers by giving tax breaks by the govenment to the producers of Renewable source of energy so that it can help them in competing well in the market with Non-renewable energy producers.