Energy and Place
Essential Questions:
1. How does energy production impact place?
2. How does your sense of place, your environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your perception of man's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
2. How does your sense of place, your environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your perception of man's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
Link to my Humanities Energy and Place project below:
Energy and Place
Energy and Place
Joint Scientific Statement:
Opening Statement:
Natural Gas is a clean and abundant energy source that burns 80-85% cleaner than both coal and oil, emitting less sulfur, nitrogen, carbon, and ash than burning fossil fuels. Like all fossil fuels, natural gas still produces CO2, but the amount of CO2 is much less. Natural gas, right now, generates 24.76% of the electricity in the U.S. and more than 119,000 vehicles run on natural gas in the United States. Because the U.S. produces about one-fifth of the world’s natural gas each year, we are currently reducing our reliance on foreign oil, which is a good thing.
Natural Gas extraction creates boom towns, which is a town undergoing rapid growth due to a sudden prosperity, allowing there to be more money and more jobs. When these companies come in to these towns, they provide around 1.2 million employment opportunities for the people of these towns, whether it is working for the company or the local businesses. Families in these towns, before the boom, are quite poor and don’t have the money to get enough food on the table for their kids. So when these booms happen, there are higher paying jobs for the working people of each family, which helps the families support themselves much better than before.
During the boom in these towns, people are getting more money and becoming richer because of the increase in the economy. More specifically, people who own oil wells and land that the oil company want drill on will be paid a large amount of money each month, around $8,000-$35,000. Even if you don’t work for the gas companies, local businesses will start to pay their workers more because the town has a increasing economy, which again, helps the poorer families. Our opponents might mention the bust part of the boom and bust and yes the bust part is bad, but once the oil company leaves the town, it will still have a great amount of money from the boom.
Because there is a high and growing usage of natural gas in the united states, for electricity, industrial, residential, commercial, and pipeline fuel transportation, there has to be an efficient extraction method. Hydraulic fracking and coalbed methane extraction are the two ways we are currently producing oil. Our opponents might mention how fracking harms the environment, but fracking is done between 1,000 and 4,000 feet below the ground, which is so far underground that the chances of of it contaminating ground water is very unlikely. There has been one water complaint regarding the water contamination, but it turns out that it was not related to hydraulic fracking.
Another pro to natural gas is that it is easily controlled, which means that the power plants can be turned on and off immediately adjusting to immediate demands. This is the only type of energy, we are currently using in mass amounts, that has the ability to do this.
The reason everyone here should vote in favor of natural gas is because there are more pros than cons to the production and usage of natural gas. Each point I have made in this opening statement, cleaner, more abundant energy, reducing foreign oil, the boom towns, high and growing usage of natural gas, hydraulic fracking and coalbed methane extraction, the fallacies behind it, and how easily controlled it is. These are the reasons that why you should vote in favor of natural gas.
Natural Gas extraction creates boom towns, which is a town undergoing rapid growth due to a sudden prosperity, allowing there to be more money and more jobs. When these companies come in to these towns, they provide around 1.2 million employment opportunities for the people of these towns, whether it is working for the company or the local businesses. Families in these towns, before the boom, are quite poor and don’t have the money to get enough food on the table for their kids. So when these booms happen, there are higher paying jobs for the working people of each family, which helps the families support themselves much better than before.
During the boom in these towns, people are getting more money and becoming richer because of the increase in the economy. More specifically, people who own oil wells and land that the oil company want drill on will be paid a large amount of money each month, around $8,000-$35,000. Even if you don’t work for the gas companies, local businesses will start to pay their workers more because the town has a increasing economy, which again, helps the poorer families. Our opponents might mention the bust part of the boom and bust and yes the bust part is bad, but once the oil company leaves the town, it will still have a great amount of money from the boom.
Because there is a high and growing usage of natural gas in the united states, for electricity, industrial, residential, commercial, and pipeline fuel transportation, there has to be an efficient extraction method. Hydraulic fracking and coalbed methane extraction are the two ways we are currently producing oil. Our opponents might mention how fracking harms the environment, but fracking is done between 1,000 and 4,000 feet below the ground, which is so far underground that the chances of of it contaminating ground water is very unlikely. There has been one water complaint regarding the water contamination, but it turns out that it was not related to hydraulic fracking.
Another pro to natural gas is that it is easily controlled, which means that the power plants can be turned on and off immediately adjusting to immediate demands. This is the only type of energy, we are currently using in mass amounts, that has the ability to do this.
The reason everyone here should vote in favor of natural gas is because there are more pros than cons to the production and usage of natural gas. Each point I have made in this opening statement, cleaner, more abundant energy, reducing foreign oil, the boom towns, high and growing usage of natural gas, hydraulic fracking and coalbed methane extraction, the fallacies behind it, and how easily controlled it is. These are the reasons that why you should vote in favor of natural gas.
Closing Statements:
Natural Gas is the solution for energy now and in the future.
→ It is a clean and abundant energy source that burns 80-85% cleaner than both coal and oil, Like all fossil fuels, natural gas still produces CO2, but the amount of CO2 is much less.
→ The extraction process creates boom towns: providing around 1.2 million employment opportunities for the people of these towns whether it is working for the company or the local businesses. The families of these towns will make more money and rise out of poverty. And more importantly the economy will increase a lot.
→ The way to extract the natural gas is effective and efficient, whether is it hydraulic fracking or coalbed methane extraction. Both methods are safe because of how much attention and precaution is taken.
→ Along with all of the reason i just mentioned, natural gas can be easily controlled, which means that the power plants can be turned on and off immediately adjusting to immediate demands which is quite important.
→ The environmental consequences, as my opponents have mentioned, can be a large problem, but there has been research to show that it is not as harmful as said and many companies are doing what they can to protect the environment and following many laws and acts that the EPA and other people have passed.
→ You should vote for natural gas because we want to make sure our earth stays clean and preserved for as long as we can and so that the future generations will have everything we have if not more… and to do this we need a clean and abundant energy source.
→ And if we dont have this energy source the future generations might not have anything.
Vote Natural Gas.
Thank you!
→ It is a clean and abundant energy source that burns 80-85% cleaner than both coal and oil, Like all fossil fuels, natural gas still produces CO2, but the amount of CO2 is much less.
→ The extraction process creates boom towns: providing around 1.2 million employment opportunities for the people of these towns whether it is working for the company or the local businesses. The families of these towns will make more money and rise out of poverty. And more importantly the economy will increase a lot.
→ The way to extract the natural gas is effective and efficient, whether is it hydraulic fracking or coalbed methane extraction. Both methods are safe because of how much attention and precaution is taken.
→ Along with all of the reason i just mentioned, natural gas can be easily controlled, which means that the power plants can be turned on and off immediately adjusting to immediate demands which is quite important.
→ The environmental consequences, as my opponents have mentioned, can be a large problem, but there has been research to show that it is not as harmful as said and many companies are doing what they can to protect the environment and following many laws and acts that the EPA and other people have passed.
→ You should vote for natural gas because we want to make sure our earth stays clean and preserved for as long as we can and so that the future generations will have everything we have if not more… and to do this we need a clean and abundant energy source.
→ And if we dont have this energy source the future generations might not have anything.
Vote Natural Gas.
Thank you!
Debate Video:
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Reflection:
For this project we debated on the for or against side for either natural gas or nuclear energy after doing about two weeks of research. I decided that I wanted to learn more about natural gas so I choose to debate on that topic, I got to debate on the for side. Before the debate and the research, my position was undecided or pretty neutral because I didn’t know nearly enough to choose a side. After the debate and research I was on the for side because I think that natural gas is a better and more efficient source of energy than coal or oil. My position changed because I learned a great amount more information about natural gas. During the beginning of researching I was leaning more towards the against side because of the environmental issues associated with the extraction and burning of natural gas, but as I learned more and looked at more companies websites, I saw that a lot of the issues are human error or humans fault. Also learning that natural gas burns 80-85% cleaner than fossil fuels and how abundant it is, along with how efficient the extraction process is. Another interesting thing I learned during this project is that the destruction of the environment around the fracking wells is because of the tucks and commotion that, again, the humans create. During the debate, on the against side, I felt like their strongest argument was the amount of water used and the transportation of chemicals, how it can spill and cause major problems. And on the for side, I think the strongest argument made was how efficient, in general, natural gas is.
A few questions that I would like to research further about energy is the human error involved in all energy sources and how they can be fixed to make the usage much better. I would also like to go more indepth with how dangerous and environmentally unfriendly fracking and coalbed methane extraction really is and the fallacies behind it all. I think that attending a class or speech, by an expert, on natural gas or maybe even talking to a company that extracts and sells natural gas.
Because our open debate was cut off and we didn’t get to make all our points, I think that we didn’t get to go as intellectually in depth as we all could have and wanted to. I personally really enjoy debating so I wish it would have gone a lot longer, but the time we had was definitely intellectually engaging because of the research we all did and the time we each put into our research. In our debate I think that my opening statement went well and I had a lot of ethos that I informed people about but I looked down at my paper the whole time and I should have spent more time memorizing or familiarizing myself with my speech. As for the open debate I think that I was very prepared and has a strong perspective that I wasn’t going to wave from. I should have written a shorter and more powerful closing statement because I got cut-off and I didn’t change anyones mind.
Honestly, my environmental ethics and sense of place developed in Humanities did not really inform and affect the position I took on the motion. Although, now that I think about it my environmental ethics do play a part in the motion I debated on because I feel like the people in a place, if they care enough, can help their country or city or town sustain and preserve itself. And with natural gas extraction and production it can go either way depending on the place.
During the debate I made the statement that there has only been one reported on water contamination due to natural gas extraction; I did a fact check on ConocoPhillips’s website and in the past six years there has only been one report but it turns out that it has nothing to do with the natural gas extraction. One of my opponents said that there has been water contamination for the spilling of chemicals during the transportation process and because they use around 400 tanker trucks to transport these chemicals and water there is a very high chance that chemicals will spill out and cause water contamination.
A few questions that I would like to research further about energy is the human error involved in all energy sources and how they can be fixed to make the usage much better. I would also like to go more indepth with how dangerous and environmentally unfriendly fracking and coalbed methane extraction really is and the fallacies behind it all. I think that attending a class or speech, by an expert, on natural gas or maybe even talking to a company that extracts and sells natural gas.
Because our open debate was cut off and we didn’t get to make all our points, I think that we didn’t get to go as intellectually in depth as we all could have and wanted to. I personally really enjoy debating so I wish it would have gone a lot longer, but the time we had was definitely intellectually engaging because of the research we all did and the time we each put into our research. In our debate I think that my opening statement went well and I had a lot of ethos that I informed people about but I looked down at my paper the whole time and I should have spent more time memorizing or familiarizing myself with my speech. As for the open debate I think that I was very prepared and has a strong perspective that I wasn’t going to wave from. I should have written a shorter and more powerful closing statement because I got cut-off and I didn’t change anyones mind.
Honestly, my environmental ethics and sense of place developed in Humanities did not really inform and affect the position I took on the motion. Although, now that I think about it my environmental ethics do play a part in the motion I debated on because I feel like the people in a place, if they care enough, can help their country or city or town sustain and preserve itself. And with natural gas extraction and production it can go either way depending on the place.
During the debate I made the statement that there has only been one reported on water contamination due to natural gas extraction; I did a fact check on ConocoPhillips’s website and in the past six years there has only been one report but it turns out that it has nothing to do with the natural gas extraction. One of my opponents said that there has been water contamination for the spilling of chemicals during the transportation process and because they use around 400 tanker trucks to transport these chemicals and water there is a very high chance that chemicals will spill out and cause water contamination.