PHI 103 Week 1 Assignment: Benefit or Harm

Benefit or Harm

Informal Logic PHI103

April 6, 2020

Introduction

           The topic that is being addressed in the final paper is Economics. The specific question that is “would shifting to alternative sources of energy such as wind or solar be likely to benefit or harm the economy in the long run?” In economics, an essential factor to note is one of their fundamental problems, and the reason for most of the conflict is scarcity. “Scarcity refers to the basic economic problem, the gap between limited – that is, scarce – resources and theoretically limitless wants” (Chappelow, 2019). We all have unlimited wants for energy, even if you don’t readily know you are using power. Sources from the National Geographic state, “People generate more electricity from coal than any other fossil fuel. One popular use of this form of non-renewable energy is heating homes” (2019). Scarcity of resources we currently use is impacting the economy, should we be looking for alternative renewable resources like wind or solar?

Argument One

           The first argument resource is an article written by a professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Rob Alexander. The material is from Alumni Magazine – Winter 2018 and has more updated recent information included. To summarize Rob Alexander, the transition to renewable wind and solar energy will result in net economic gain for our economy. He notes that change will be in phases, the first shift going from fossil fuel to electricity. He states that a few adaptions to power will be from electric vehicles and electric heat pumps in homes for heating. The cost of this plan would be around 320 billion a year from 2020-2050, putting it about 8 percent of the federal government’s budget. After the initial investment, the savings will prove itself my claiming higher than 700 billion by 2040. He notes that there is some room for concern in the operational hours for solar and wind, as they are only useable during a particular time of the day, whereas fossil fuel can be used 24/7. In his conclusion, renewable energy shift would make sense purely off economic grounds alone, because of the controversy of climate change.

The current impacts of climate change are estimated by Nicholas Stern, on the GDP, which is on a long-term descend of twenty percent.

Twentynine percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions are produced from generating electricity

The Levelized Cost of electricity from solar is now fully competitive with coal, without subsidies, and the Levelized cost of electricity for wind is potentially even lower than that of natural gas generation.

Conclusion: Therefore, the impacts that fossil fuels have on climate change and the recent price leveling, meaning they are comparable to each other, shifting to renewable resources such as wind benefit our economy greatly. 

           The quality of the reasoning in the sources is sound advice from an Economics professor. The evaluation takes both sides of the climate change argument. It incorporates others in the article and supports their ideas with citations and consistent data. The report breaks down why changing to renewable resources is better for the climate and greenhouse admissions, and it evaluates the change in the economic factors as well. This argument speaks well for those in favor of changing to renewable resources because it will benefit the economy and climate change.

Argument Two

The second argument resource is an online journal the suggests that migrating to renewable might not be the right fit for our economy in the title. The article was co-founded by an advisor on energy, systems, and societal futures. To summarize this post, the author notes that renewable energy is a realistic future, but he comments mostly on time it will take to phase out fossil fuel altogether. The faster the push to phase out the current energy sources, the more demand it will create. With more demand and less supply, it causes economic crashes and a decline in GDP. There are models used as references in the article that suggest 50-year phase-outs, but we would need to create ten times more wind and solar plants to keep the supply coming. That financial investment along comes with a price tag of three trillion per year. The critical point is shifting to clean energy needs to be a slow and carefully monitored transition to keep the supply enough for everyone.

“A rapid, large-scale energy transition creates extra demands for energy services. This demand will compete with other economic activities” (James and Floyd, 2016).

“A 50-year fossil-fuel phase-out represents a relatively modest transition rate. Even so, in the model’s baseline scenario, net energy services decline during that transition period by more than 15% before recovering” (James and Floyd, 2016).

“Wind and solar plants need to be installed at eight to ten times current rates by 2035… Financially, this corresponds with capital investment in wind and solar PV plants plus batteries of around US$3 trillion per year (in 2015 dollars) and average lifetime capital cost in the order of US$5 trillion to US$6 trillion per year” (James and Floyd, 2016).

Conclusion: Because of an increased need for wind and solar equipment, there is a sizeable financial tag to clean energy. If we were to rush the job, we would risk demand increase and failure to supply enough power.

           The quality of this post is fantastic to the argument I was trying to make. The sources authors have credited economists and are published on several sites. Their opinion is based on modeling, and they have comparison provided that support their ideas. Their work includes suggested articles that help expand ideas further without taking from the article. I found this article a bit difficult to summarize as it has a lot of specific information, I will more than like have to quote excerpts from this article in the final paper.

Conclusion

           In conclusion, the topic chosen of economics is a fitting subject for an argument assignment. With economics, the biggest problem we face is scarcity and how to plan around unlimited wants with limited resources. We have limited resources we use as energy currently, and if we were to change to renewable resources such as wind or solar, could this impact harm or benefit our economy? Argument One poses as it is a benefit, whereas Argument Two suggests it is harmful to swamp suddenly. Well-known economists in their fields support both arguments as presented.

Resources

Rob Alexander, (Winter 2018). Would transitioning to renewable energy hurt the economy? https://bulletin.kenyon.edu/article/would-transitioning-to-renewable-energy-hurt-the-economy/

Anthony James and Josh Floyd, (May 6, 2016). Phasing out fossil fuels for renewables may not be a straightforward swap. https://energypost.eu/phasing-fossil-fuels-renewables-may-straightforward-swap/

Jim Chappelow. (June 25, 2019). Scarcity. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/scarcity.asp

Resource Library. (2019). Encyclopedia Entry-Non-renewable energy https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/non-renewable-energy/