What does energy cost us?
Energy powers almost everything we do in our daily lives and makes things like traveling, cooking, and healthcare more efficient. One would think that using more renewable and modernized energy sources would be a benefit to society and to the environment. However, there are some interesting points that dispute this argument in opposition to switching to renewable sources of energy.
While there are numerous benefits to cleaner and renewable sources of energy, that does not exclude it from the trade offs that are caused by using them. One of the articles on my classmate Ramy Khadra’s blog goes into detail about these trade offs. In his article “Peer Findings”, Khadra referenced a survey which asked if using renewable energy will help the environment. To his surprise, and to mine as well, a majority of people that answered said renewable energy will not help the environment. Why is this the case? What makes people not want to chose a better and cleaner energy source? By analyzing his article further, I found that Khadra had come up with sound reason as to why the survey got the results it received. In his article, he concludes, “…nothing comes without a cost, whether that be a financial cost like the expenses to implement these new energy sources or the cost of new hazards being a thing due to the new structures built, or the waste produced by things such as nuclear energy” (Khadra, 2021). In other words, just like with less modern sources of energy like fossil fuels, there are still negative effects of implementing renewable energy sources into society. These new energy systems tend to be less affordable to a normal customer but have the added benefit of being more sustainable and healthy for the environment. Many people would rather save their money by using the existing energy sources than to spend more on a newer source of energy.
Though it may now seem that using renewable energy sources is not the best idea in terms of saving money and the new waste produced by these sources, it must be understood that everything comes with a cost. Though this is true, some costs are much worse than others and could possibly lead to more harm than good. Khadra explains this point in his article as well by saying, “…we have to measure these and compare them to other costs. Such as how the current energy sources affect our health and are slowly killing our environments” (Khadra, 2021). In different terms, we should look at the costs when deciding what the best energy source to use is because though existing energy sources are much more affordable, they leave a much bigger impact on the environment than renewable energy does. Pollution is a major cost of non-renewable energies and one that has to be considered when choosing a source of energy in order to reduce the effect we have on our climate and environment.
So how does all of this relate to the pandemic? As I have stated in my previous articles within this blog, energy is an essential tool when it comes to battling diseases as well as preventing their spread. Choosing the right source of energy makes all the difference when it comes to getting the world on track towards recovery and preventing any more harm to our surroundings.
Khadra, R. (2021, March 10). Peer Findings. Medium. https://medium.com/a-cleaner-future/peer-findings-f7d8fb1edb25
