A* essay answer for the exam question "Assess the Costs and Benefits of Alternative Energy Sources in Securing a Sustainable Energy Future (15 marks)".
Written by an A* A level student who scored full UMS in their Geography exams as well as having several of their essays chosen as model answers ...
Assess the Costs and Bene its of Alternative Energy Sources in Securing a Sustainable
Energy Future (15 marks)
In securing a sustainable future it is necessary that alternative energy resources meet
certain requirements, which are de ined by Bradshaw (2009) as been ‘reasonably
priced, reliable and environmentally-friendly’. A sustainable energy future will be one
that ful ils these terms to ensure we have a constant supply of affordable energy that will
not be environmentally harmful or deplete the earth’s inite resources. There are a
number of different alternative energy sources both renewable—an in inite low of
nature such as solar or wind—and recyclable—those with a lifespan that can be
extended through reprocessing such as nuclear and biofuels—that have the potential to
meet the needs of a sustainable energy future. However many of these sources have
costs as well as bene its, which must be assessed to determine their suitability to secure
a sustainable energy future.
Biofuels are a recyclable alternative energy source primarily used for transport and not
electricity generation as many of the others. Due to their lexibility, they have the
advantage of being able to replace diesel and petrol with their food crop alternative fuels
such as biodiesel and bioethanol. Brazil, which could be considered as a biofuel
superpower, is greatly dependant on their use after increasing production to reduce
reliance on oil. By 2008, 50% of all petrol came from bioethanol from sugar cane and the
extent of its dominance is such that pure oil is no longer sold. While Brazil has the
advantage of have vast areas of land to crop biofuels crops on, a major cost is that the
land used could be used for growing food. Consequently, there is a link between global
food prices and the growth of biofuels—which was seen in 2007-8 when explosive
biofuel growth was blame for food price highs. This is therefore a major cost as the
development of biofuels places great threat on global food security, already predicted to
worsen with increased weather extremities and hydrometeorological events link with
global warming. Furthermore, the land clearing that is often a requirement of intensive
biofuel production is responsible for massive deforestation, which results in the loss of a
carbon sink, in addition to releasing large quantities of CO2 as burning takes place for
forest clearance—meaning they are not, as sometimes considered, carbon neutral. In
spite of this, development in the biofuel industry may reduce or completely eliminate the
main costs of biofuels as 2nd and 3rd generation biofuels are developed. Second
generation biofuels will use the waste from crops and in this way will break the link with
increasing food prices and further to this third generation biofuels will be synthetically
manufactured, both of which point towards a more sustainable energy future. However,
until these developments can be made to ensure biofuels are not impacting global food
prices and making serious contributions to carbon emissions, biofuels cannot be
considered as viable for securing a sustainable energy future.
Another example of a recyclable energy source is nuclear power, which is a controversial
issue due to the great potential that nuclear has as an alternative source when
contrasted with the serious risks associated with its use. On the positive side, Nuclear is
much more ef icient than other alternative energy sources—the output of one nuclear
power station is equivalent to that of 7000 onshore wind turbines— and traditional
fossil fuels—one uranium pellet produces as much energy as one tonne of coal or 17,000
cubic feet of natural gas. Furthermore, nuclear provides a constant power source—a
great advantage when most alternative sources are intermittent—and is therefore well
suited to provide a stable base load energy source with low life cycle carbon emissions.
Nuclear Superpower France has taken advantage of these bene its and produce 76% of
their electricity using 59 nuclear power stations and Japan’s energy mix is also heavily
nuclear. In spite of these advantages, player’s opinions are divided due to the fact that
there is strong public mistrust over past and more recent nuclear incidents such as
Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011). Moreover, social acceptability is decreased by
the fact that there is also the threat of nuclear proliferation for use as a weapon for
example as suspected in Zimbabwe in addition to power stations being a target for
terrorist attacks. Further mistrust is seen due to the disposal of high-level radioactive
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