A pollutant is a substance in the air, which can cause damage to the environment and human. The air pollutants are usually in the form of liquid droplets, gases, or solid articles. Additionally, they can be manmade or natural, and in most cases, they are either primary or secondary. Primary pollutants are productions from various processes including volcanic eruptions, carbon monoxide gases from sulfur dioxide or motor vehicles, which industries release to the atmosphere. Secondary pollutants are pollutants are not direct productions. In most cases, they form on the environment when a primary pollutant interacts. Ground level ozone is the best example of a secondary pollutant (Rao, 43). Ground level ozone makes up photochemical smog. In other cases, some pollutants are both secondary and primary pollutants that are; their production is directly from primary and other pollutants.

Human activities are the main Primary pollutants. They include, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, Volatile organic compounds, Atmospheric particulate matter, Persistent free radicals and toxic metals. The toxic metals include copper, lead and cadmium (Rao, 55). Odor from garbage and sewage is also other human activities, which are primary pollutants.  The secondary pollutants include ground level ozone and peroxyacetyl nitrates. Conversely, air pollution is the contamination of outdoor or indoor environment by physical, biological or chemical agents, which modifies natural atmosphere characteristics. Motor cars, household combustion devices, forest fires, and industrial facilities are the frequent sources of pollution. Pollutants of the key public health apprehensions include carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and sulfur dioxide. Indoor and outdoor pollution of air cause respiratory problem among other significant diseases.  Atmosphere is a complicated and dynamic natural gaseous system, which is essential in supporting life on the planet earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion because of air pollution is a significant threat to earth’s ecosystems and human health. Urban air and Indoor pollution are the two of the globe’s worst toxic pollution challenges (Rao, 95).

Assignment 2

Challenges Facing the Energy Industry

The energy scramble is causing many problems affecting energy such as high oil prices, increasing concern over the security of current energy sources, including the current threat of global climatic change, which contribute cumulatively to threats on the diminishing global energy sources. Electric energy sources face various challenges. Many researchers including the public during electric energy sources discussion often reduce it to an assessment of monetary cost against traditional fuel energy sources.

Reducing it to monetary metric value hinders the complexities surrounding its potential feasibility, viability, and significance of pursuing advance technological alternatives.  It enhances the challenge of assessing the potential energy alternatives development because it involves the issue of end-use requirement of energy, trade-offs in resources, including land and water, and the scarcity of material. Many researchers and energy policy makers often assume that alternative energy can substitute oil, gas, and coal. This is not the case. Integrating an energy alternative in sources such as electric energy source requires massive investment in both infrastructure, and equipment.

The issue of problems facing the energy industry is complex. Discussing it is hard because of political biases, insufficient basic energy science, and lack of appreciating the importance of current energy problem. Various factors play significant roles, which makes these problems affecting the energy sector worse.

Scalability and Timing

Because energy depend on construction and engineering equipments, including the manufacturing production processes, output comes as new technology comes online, which relies on the timely procurement of energy input, and materials necessary for production. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the rate of global decline of conventional oil fields is around 6.4 percent, meaning by 2020, production of new oil will not even be half what is from the depletion of oil fields. This poses a problem to electric energy, which depends on oil for its generation. Scalability absence to provide time and magnitude of energy sources with increasing demand is true in other energy sources, which support electric energy such as coal, biofuels, and alternative energy like geothermal energy (Steenblik and Joy 83).

Substitutability

According to Morgan, Jay and Lester (305), the absence of substitutability is evident in electric energy production. Although it is possible to generate electric energy from solar power or wind, the requirements to achieve this are extensive. Developing solar power or wind electricity requires additional infrastructure. Problems in electricity energy power come during generation when these energy sources no longer exist, or existence is far from population centers, this result to extensive investments in transportation infrastructure to deliver the energy services to the consumption centers.

Water

Water is a source of conflict among people and nations, which contributes to the problems affecting electric energy. Allocating all water resource in California for crop production, possess a problem to energy production on the issue of food versus energy production. The factor of water contributing to the energy problem intensifies with global warming as winter snow fades and the runoff water to support food production declines (Colby and George 264).

Solution to the Energy Problems

The current energy sector is at a critical stage. The increasing demand for energy against declining supplies, fluctuating energy markets, and the need to decrease overdependence of oil, there is a need to adopt significant energy policies that will ensure the sustainability of energy needs. Energy policy makers can choose to use nuclear power, or make a choice of producing energy sustainably, and change the energy infrastructure to enhance energy security and promote economy with a minimal impact.

Avoiding consumption of energy through measures such as energy conversion efficiency, and modest lifestyle, provides a significant effect on the reduction of energy material consumption, and undesirable emissions including political consequences (Noam 846). These solutions to the current problems in energy are in three categories: conservation, coal energy choices, and energy policies.

Conservation does not solve the energy crisis but provides improvement in the situation. A conservation program will have to integrate all consumers of electric energy. The industrial sector should continue cutbacks in the fuel efficiency program without affecting production.  The necessity of this across the board conservation program will touch every part of the population under the energy sector.

Reducing the problems due to increasing demand of electric energy power needs to be in a sustainable manner. According to Noam (851), the use of coal in the United States will increase the need to initiate emission controls and other environmental and social impacts. This is because of association with a coal economy. Coal usage has efficiency of up to 60 percent.  The cost of coal is reasonable, which keeps decreasing as technology further advances.

Promoting energy subsidies, incentives, and policies enhance the ability to take advantage of energy options. It enables taking steps to secure energy paths, which will assist in securing the future for energy exploration, and improve lives. Noam (864) suggests the policy should ensure that it encourages the society and economy to use less energy, and in an efficient manner. It should regulate the building of energy facilities, when there is no need for them. The policy should encourage shifting to cleaner, renewable energy source through providing incentives and subsidiaries. It should bring current energy facilities up to modern pollution standards. It is essential to make use of these solutions whenever possible to reduce the problems in the electric energy sector. In addition to this, further research including development into new energy technology is essential. Every state should be aware of its energy problems, and be receptive to innovative solutions. If states blend a combination of alternatives to counter the energy problems, all of them will be cause minimal effect.

Transport Infrastructure

Transport infrastructure has had problems in its management since it serves a great number of individuals who rely on it. There have been ideas of the government supporting it, which in the end have had great demands forcing the government to pull out in its management. There was a suggestion whereby the transport infrastructure be privatized though it has not had a positive outcome yet. The number of people depending on the transport infrastructure was to tax hence, that money is in use to help manage transport systems in the United States. Privatization of these set of transport systems is effective on various sectors like manufacturing industries especially the telecommunication sector.

Problems Facing Transport Infrastructure and Solutions

The theory behind privatizing the transport infrastructure has had massive effect in terms of the capital that is to assist on its maintenance and management. The three major problems resulting from the privatization of transport infrastructure include natural monopolies, merit goods, in addition to the rate of high amounts on capital costs. These problems result from the relation between the government’s support on the transport sect and the decision that suggests the infrastructure made a private ordeal. In privatization of the transport, system then the property rights and regulations will deviate to the level where it will be working under the decision made by the public. Once it is a private property, then it becomes a public enterprise, in that the ultimate principle who happens to be the taxpayer opt for the government as its agent to manage it.

The moment the government has that privilege then it has the responsibility of employing a manager who in return acts as an agent who reports to the government and not the public. The utter most effect experienced on the privatization theory is that it cuts down the chain of command where the manager has employees subjected to him yet at the same time he answers to the government. Since the government is acting as the public’s agent, it will have to take the responsibility just in case something goes wrong and answer to the public. The chain of command from the principal to their agent is minimal, plus, providing incentives by owners to keep a close eye on the director. The inducement issue is the hot spot in privatization, which happen to be the focus when referring to property rights hypothesis.

Natural monopolies happen to turn out as a problem that links privatization to the problems faced by the transportation infrastructure. The coexistence between the decision rights and the profits made has a lesser straightforward understanding when matters of natural monopolies are in consideration. These characteristics of public infrastructure call for maximum consideration. In the economy of the country, the transport and energy sectors are the dominants. The control characteristic destabilizes the argument for confidential ownership. Something about privatizing the infrastructure is that it leads to competition among various sectors that serve the taxpayers or the public. If there were no competition, policy, as well as ownership structure, then privatization would have turn out to be the best solution.

The transport system in the United States has faced expansion over the last years with the transport department coming up with several ideas on the modes of transport. By increasing the modes of transport, the government is trying to ease the burden of moving taxpayers from one point to another (Girard, 281). It also creates an easy management drill since each mode of transport will be relaying on its managers to ensure that they are not having trouble. The managers to these various departments will be answerable to the ministry under the government responsible for transport infrastructure. Most of these transport systems rely on burning fuels, yet some base on energy like the electrical trains.

The transport systems divide users to various levels in since not all citizens can afford the cost of any mode transport. Cases of insecurity have been on the rise since terrorists are using transport as bait to take out more lives. The transport system requires maximum security since it can be a target where many lives can be lost. Airbuses and train systems transport a great number of people around cities and they consume fuels. People using their own private means of transportation need to be limited from accessing the city center to reduce the congestion of traffic around the central business district.

Conclusion

Most of the fuels in use under the transport system are non-renewable, of which it causes harm to the environment thus, it is expensive. The threats caused by the transport systems are avoidable in one way or another. It is up to people to come up with creative ideas that will be less costly and cause no harm to the atmosphere (Girard, 281). The primary source of transportation energy around the United States is petroleum energy. This is because of the increased number of motor as a means of transport around the state. It is harmful to the environment since the rate green house gases produced is at a rapidly growing state.

References

Colby, Bonnie G, and George B. Frisvold. Adaptation and Resilience: The Economics of

Climate, Water, and Energy Challenges in the American Southwest. Washington, DC:

Earthscan, 2011. Print.  264.

Rao, M N, and H V. N. Rao. Air Pollution. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Pub, 2009. Print.

Girard, James. Principles of Environmental Chemistry. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett     Publishers, 2010. Print.