Isaacs 1

Jake Isaacs
ENG 112-78
Connie Douglas
Rhetorical Analysis
September 4, 2014
Crisis or not?
The world that we live in today is literally dependent on the energy that we use
and where we get it from. Almost every way that we develop, create, and grow as a country is
relied upon unrenewable resources such as oil and gas. This may not seem as a problem to most
but with a world that is reaching a population never reached before this is a continuing problem
and will continue to grow for decades to come. Agriculture, Infrastructure, and Economic growth
is almost completely dependent on how much oil and gas we have, how much it costs to get it,
and where it comes from. Whether it be farmers using equipment, Construction workers using
equipment or even the individual person using their car; our worlds economy is reliant upon the
excavation and use of natural resources such as gas, coal, and oil. Most may see this as a
problem blown out of proportion but in reality there is a limit to how much we can get and time
frame to which we reach that limit. This is why we the people should start investing more time
and thought into resources that are renewable and clean.
From cars to boats to heavy machinery almost every component to how society
develops and operates in todays world is solely relied upon resources that we cannot renew. Our
society relies on an ever expansion of large cities, wide acres of farms, and transportation to

Isaacs 2
move about from one location to another. Otherwise there would be shortages of food, jobs, and
even space for individuals to live in. Every single one of these key components that makes the
world work as we see it today has a never ending quench for oil and gas; if this thirst is not
fulfilled then society as we know it today would stop immediately and the most necessary things
such as food and clean water would not be accessible. Although we as a society has started to
make a slow move towards clean and renewable energy sources we have not made even the
smallest impact on how it operates. Various models forecast that By 2020 to 2030 the world
will depend upon between 115 and 130 million barrels a day of oil use which is 50 percent
higher than today (Simmons). So why has the world not made a larger effort to simply convert
to a cleaner and renewable energy source to supply our needs such as wind, sun, and water? Only
because of the large costs that are associated with creating and converting to these types of
resources and the fact is that it is simply not cheap enough and not affordable enough to do so
compared to the costs of gas and oil currently.
The biggest constrictions with renewable energy according to an article by William
Tucker called Energy Alternatives, is that Renewable energy sources require large tracts of
open land on which to construct new energy receptors and generators (Tucker). This is a big
problem because the cost of land is one of the most expensive commodities there is and is only
rising in price. Even more so with the research done on the amount of power produced by
gasoline, anthracite coal and liquid natural gas they are simply the most efficient and the most
powerful at producing energy. According to the article Gasoline produces an astounding 9.7
kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power, Anthracite coal produces 9.4 (kWh) and liquid natural gas 7.2
(kWh) (Tucker). Whereas Covering every square foot of every building in the country with
solar panels would be enough to provide our indoor lightingabout 4 percent of our total

Isaacs 3
electrical consumptionduring the daytime (Tucker). This means that currently the energy
demands of our society simply cannot be met by the amount of energy produced by renewable
resources.
Even though it may seem as if renewable energy sources will not be able to meet the
demand of society for quite some time, we also dont have as much time as people perceive until
non-renewable resources are in such scarcity that they no longer meet our demands as well. With
this conflicting problem between the two, the answers are only going to be found through more
persistence of studies and research combined with the slow withdrawal of dependency on nonrenewable resources. This may not happen overnight but with proper preparation and planning
when we reach the state of fossil fuels becoming low in quantity, we will have already started a
new evolution of a cleaner and more efficient world that we live in.

Isaacs 4
Works Cited
Tucker, William. "Renewable Energy Sources Cannot Meet America's Energy Demands."
Energy Alternatives. David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010.
Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "There's Plenty of Energy at the Bottom." American
Spectator 42 (Apr. 2009): 26-31. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Sept. 2014
Simmons, Matthew. "The Oil Supply Crisis Could Be Humanity's Greatest Challenge." What Is
Humanity's Greatest Challenge? Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. At
Issue. Rpt. from "Shock to the System: The Impending Global Energy Supply Crisis."
Harvard International Review 28.3 (Fall 2006). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web.
17 Sept. 2014.