Pros x Cons of Natural Gas:
Pros-
Cons-
-Lobbying
-Water can bring up absorbed underground toxins including arsenic
-Linked to earthquakes
-Requires large amounts of water
Pros-
- Contributes to 21% of the worlds energy production
- End use appliances already widespread
- Used extensively for power generation as well as heat
- Cleanest of all fossil fuels
- Burns more efficiently
- Emits 45% less CO2 than coal
- Emits 30% less CO2 than oil
- Low levels of criteria pollutants or soot when burned
- Can be used as an automotive fuel
- No waste (residue)
- Lighter than air and safer than propane (which is heavier than air)
- Used to make plastics, chemicals, fertilizers, and hydrogen
- Employs 1.2 million people
Cons-
- Non-renewable fuel (can't be replaced for millennia)
- Emits carbon dioxide when burned
- Contains 80-95% methane (a potent greenhouse gas)
- Explosive and dangerous
- Long distance transmission and transportation
- Energy penalties at every stage of production and distribution
- Requires extensive pipelines to transport over land
- Stored and distributed under high pressure
- Requires turbine-generators to produce electricity
- Associated with "fracking"
-Lobbying
-Water can bring up absorbed underground toxins including arsenic
-Linked to earthquakes
-Requires large amounts of water
Pros x Cons of Oil
Pros-
Cons-
Pros-
- Creates jobs for the local economy
- Can move vehicles farthest distance
- Converts int electricity
Cons-
- Non-renewable energy source
- Pollution such as co2
- Green house gases which contribute to global warming and climate change
- Oil leaks cause disruption to biodiversity
- Extracting oil takes a lot of water
- Expensive and dangerous to transport oil, which also leaves a bigger carbon footprint
- Drilling for oil can be unpredictable and dangerous
Pros x Cons of HEMP
Pros-
Cons-
Pros-
- Hemp has the possibility to feed all industries across the board and is one that could be argued to be the only singular plant that could eliminate foreign oil dependency save the forest and create jobs and boost our economy
- Worldwide and domestic jobs can be created
- Doesn’t pollute our environment
- Growing cycle on hemp is very short
- For farmers to be the most efficient and profitable processing plants need to be within 50 miles of the farms where is ground. Considering much of the hemp is proposed to go into the planes and other places known to have very little going on it gives an opportunity for the local economy to grow greatly
- Saving the trees from deforestation
- Used as many different fuel sources
- When burned no fossil fuels are produced
- The plant itself is really resilient to any problems in soil and water, can practically grow anywhere
Cons-
- Costs might not justify on a widespread/ wide scale level
- Not legal nationally yet, even if it was it might still have barriers on where it can be grown and distributed
- Hemp producers would have to overcome major political barriers and defeat political and industrial competition and to succeed