Review paper on three scientific articles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Review paper on three scientific articles - Essay Example In the short term, improving vehicle technology could reduce petroleum consumption by one third; reducing vehicle size could level off the 2% petroleum consumption annual growth rate, but it would take 20 years. In the long term, alternative fuels and new propulsion systems for hydrogen and electrical-powered cars may be developed; however, alternative fuels such as ethanol may have large environmental impacts, and hydrogen cars will require further advances in technology. The fourth option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, changing the way vehicles are used, may include designing specific urban-use vehicles with improved gas efficiency. The article "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check" (Socolow & Pacala 50) explores ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions using available technologies. The authors state that the danger zone, in which irreversible climate changes take place, probably lies where the atmosphere has double the amount of carbon that it had before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. The article considers seven different "wedges" of the stabilization triangle (created from the difference in graphs of the carbon emission rates staying the same, and the emission rate leveling off in 50 years); each wedge represents lowering the carbon emission rate by 1 billion tons a year 50 years from now. For example, a wedge can be accomplished by not building 700 coal-fired power plants or by equipping 800 coal plants to capture and store carbon dioxide; two wedges can be accomplished by cutting buildings electricity use in half. Policies of setting a cost of $100-200 per ton of carbon emissions may help to yield seven wedges, but further policies may be needed, for instance, to encourage commercialization of renewable energy technologies and to prevent construction of high-carbon emissions plants. The article "The Rise of Renewable Energy" (Kammen 84) focuses on