Session 8- Energy and World Change: Past, Present, Future

I used to think that USA was the greatest culprit in the world for consuming too much. I found myself proven wrong during this session as I found out that Singapore was not far behind in our rate of consumption. China and India uses about 50-60% less than USA and Singapore and it is possible that as their society becomes more affluent, they might consume more and have large increases in energy requirements. This is why China is the #1 investor in green technology, about twice as much as USA. I feel that this is a smart move by China as they are looking towards the needs of the future and long term issues that they might face in the years to come. Another forward looking country would be Brazil, as it is a great producer of cane based sugar in the world.

I also feel that one of the pressings issues that our society is facing today would be to make energy available to the poor. This form of energy would have to be easy to transport and cheap. Everyone in the world deserves the right to have a steady source of energy to make their lives easier and better. It is heartening to know that there is already a solar powered fridge and biomass stove made available to developing countries today. People in these countries are able to keep food for longer period of times and cook food using biomass. This is definitely a move in the right direction but we can do much more! The earth gets all its energy from the sun, and if we could find a way of trapping all that energy and transfer it to those who are in need, then the world would be a better place for all.

Another interesting fact that I learnt in lesson would be that the sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in one entire year. I used to think that fossil fuels  released the most energy but I never took into account that the sun was the biggest producer of the energy, and that the best way to harvest this would be to use solar panels as it has a lot more potential to trap energy. Imagine if entire deserts and barren lands were covered with solar panels so trap energy. If new innovations to store energy are invented, I would dare to say that the energy crisis might be solved. Photovoltaics cells is the way to go! In an urban environment, buildings can be made of these cells and the energy collected from the sun can be used to offset the energy consumption of the entire building. It is interesting to know that Germany is a champion of solar energy and it does that by providing cash incentives to its population to sell their energy back to the grid. This makes it a worthy investment and many people choose to invest in this and it helps to make Germany a greener country. This is a in line with Europe's vision of achieving 20% renewable energy by 2020. I personally feel that this is possible and I believe that Europe can achieve even more than 20% if every country models Germany's system. The European Union already implements carbon taxes to prevent it's emission and subsequently, global warming.

In this session, we talked about the burning platform. What would it take for the world's leaders to realize that our way of living is unsustainable and that we should all promote renewable sources of energy. The problem that we face now is that many people look at the situation from a short term perspective and focus more on economic benefit. Fossil fuels are easy to harvest and they don't see a need to switch to renewable energy sources. This is because a switch might cost a lot more money, time, effort, and is likely to meet a lot of opposition. For example, I learnt that offshore wind turbines not only cost money, but there are groups of people against it for the fear that it kills migrating birds, affects the property prices in the area due to an "unnatural" view of the sea, and even due to superstition. We fail to realize the conversion to renewable energy sources is necessary as time is running out. So when will world leaders realize this? Only when we run out of fossil fuels? I feel that it would be too late by then.

During the presentations, I learnt that man could harness energy from man-made tornadoes. The tornado is created in a device due to the difference in temperature between hot air and cold air. It is controlled by the machine and energy is harvested from the tornado. If the world runs out of options, this might be the way to go. Though there might be concerns that the tornado might go out of control.

Another interesting field of development would be the research on antimatter. Before the presentation, I never new such a technology with immense potential existed. 

As mentioned in the video, antimatter is the opposite of matter and it releases an immense amount of energy when it collides with matter. It is currently being used to power spaceships and this could be the solution to all our energy shortages. If antimatter is indeed develop, we do not need to worry about energy anymore. However, concerns have been raised as to the safety of this technology, as a large energy is produced, there is a potential of people getting hurt in the process. Another concern is the immense amount of money needed to generate antimatter. Is it a worthy investment? Well, only time will tell.


In my opinion, I really enjoyed this lesson as it gave me a much clearer perspective on this topic. Furthurmore, there was a special guest during class and he gave wonderful insights of his job in the renewable wind turbine energy in Siemens. Not only do I know about the issues faced by the world, I also know what is going on in the industry today. I would give this lesson a 9.5/10.