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The United States should change towards the use of alternative fuel and away from fossil fuels.

I will adopt my opponents format and address his points with the appropriate numerals: 1) "As of 2004, the total world reserves were estimated to be 1.25 trillion barrels with a daily consumption of about 85 million barrels. With this we can make an estimation of when to experience the oil depletion, which it to be around the year 2057." I agree with my opponents assertion that fossil fuels are indeed finite in supply. Where I disagree with him however is in the amount he estimates the world to currently hold within its depths. Take for instance the recent discovery of the largest ever oil field found in the Gulf of Mexico by BP - a well containing 4 to 6 billion barrels of oil and natural gas (1). Indeed not only have huge oil deposits recently been discovered, there have also been vast numbers uncovered - 200 fields this year alone (1). With these recent discoveries, it would now appear that our estimations of world oil supplies are in need of serious revisions. For truly it seems scientifically dishonest to state that the world will run out of oil in 2057 when we have no idea how much oil the world actually holds. Therefore this point of contention you hold - that the supply of oil will run out sometime in the near future - is misleading in its assertions and rather invalid for the purposes of this debate. 2) "We are too dependent on other nations for our energy sources, which could hurt us in the future." As noted earlier, the oil reserves in the United States more than adequately meet our own consumption requirements - roughly 21 billion barrels (2). We also must keep in mind that this figure is from 2007 - discounting the monumental recent findings addressed in 1 - and that it also discounts "unproven" oil reserves such as shale deposits and deep ocean wells. Therefore, your point that the U.S. doesn't have enough oil and has to import it is rather a moot point - we have the oil necessary to meet our own demand, we have simply chosen not to use it. 3) "From an environmentalist's perspective, the obtaining, refining, and usage of fossil fuels are harmful to the environment." I find it curious that some environmentalists - for I consider myself an "environmentalist" too - always point to the "unhealthy" nature of drilling for oil, when in reality the damage it does pales in comparison to the damage done by "alternative" methods of energy production. Take for instance solar panels. If we were to produce these on a commercial scale we would need to mine extensively for silicon and phosphorus. One could easily argue that the environmental damage done by mining for these minerals greatly outweighs both the damage done by gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels and the established mining for ores necessary for coal production. Another common alternative energy source offered is hydrothermal dams. However the environmental impact of building a dam is inarguably worse than burning fossil fuels (3). Indeed the building of dams is the single greatest contributor of methane to the atmosphere, which traps heat 25x more effectively than CO2 - making dams less environmentally efficient than the burning of fossil fuels (3). Furthermore recent advances in fossil fuel technology have reduced that amount of C02 produced by modern coal plants by 40% (4). Therefore coal - despite all the connotations and taboos associated with it - is actually not a very "dirty" energy production method, negating your point. "Oil spills have been known to damage natural ecosystems. It is much more damaging at sea since it can spread for hundreds of nautical miles killing sea birds, mammals, shellfish and other organisms that it coats." This is problem with the shipping of oil, not its production. The problems of transporting oil have little to do with whether or not the United States should continue to use. Indeed, the prospects of transporting alternative energy sources - say nuclear waste - are much more environmentally dangerous than shipping oil. "Fossil Fuels also contain radioactive material (uranium and thorium), which are released into the atmosphere. The burning of coal in 1982 released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island incident." This is the full quote from your source, since you decided not to show it: "Fossil fuels also contain radioactive materials, mainly uranium and thorium, which are released into the atmosphere. In 2000, about 12,000 tonnes of thorium and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were released worldwide from burning coal. It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island incident. However, this radioactivity from coal burning is minuscule at each source and has not shown to have any adverse effect on human physiology." Plagiarizing Wikipedia and deliberately editing quotes is not acceptable in a debate. Furthermore, your own sources are contradicting your arguments which is usually not a strategy employed by people interested in being taken seriously. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd also like to take some space to offer forth a point my opponent neglected to address: cost. The average cost of alternative energies is much higher when compared with fossil fuels - in the case of wind its close to a 50% increase in cost per kilowatt per hour (5). This is due mainly to the fact that alternative energies are as of now unproven, contain inefficiencies of design, and have no infrastructure which can harness the energy they create. Furthermore I'd like to state that I fully support developing alternative energy sources, but I am steadfastly against the sort of panic-driven hysteria that my opponent has offered as a reason to adopt alternative energy sources in their entirety. Because the truth is the sources we have now are rather infeasible and forcibly adopting them would do much more harm than good - the technology simply isn't ready. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: My opponent offered relatively weak reasons for why the United States should change energy production sources. Furthermore I offered evidence that forcing an artificial movement towards alternative energy sources would be economically disastrous and infeasible as the technology is not ready for commercialization. (1) - http://www.nytimes.com... (2) - http://en.wikipedia.org... (3) - http://e360.yale.edu... (4) - http://www.worldcoal.org... (5) - http://www.nytimes.com...