Topic #3 is here for you as suggested by Andres: Energy consumption abuse, and its byproducts. Your colleague would like you to read the following articles:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_conservation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption.
After reading the articles, please create a 20-word list, and post your opinion related to our topic.
The due date for this blog is next Tuesday, October 7.
Thanks, and have fun with it,
Kinga
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
Energy consumption is one of the main concerns for every person in this world. It is not only the consumption, it is the cost of consumption. The oil prices are rising on the daily basis. Most of the people cannot even afford a car because of such hiked prices. Howeer, these oil prices will contibute in reducing global warming because there will be less number of cars on teh road and people will prefer the public transportation.
I think we should make our invest in the renewale sources. Countries like Germany and Denmark can our examples. This will reduce the cost of living and also, pull down the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. I want to share another invention in India. Indian scientists have found a way to make petroleum from plastic bags we use everyday. Companies are working towards to commercialise this technology. May be one day we will not be dependable on other countries for the fuel.
The articles clearly indicate the increasing rate of energy consumption throughout the world. And as the energy consumption is increasing tremendously, the energy resources are depleting at a high rate. Some of the energy sources are feared to get completely depleted within a few years. As we all know that we are very much dependent on these sources, we must start focusing on ways to reduce energy consumption and to find new sources of energy.
The oil reserves are getting depleted very fast. The rising oil prices are making us feel handicapped, as almost every machine used nowadays needs oil and if we are not able to get oil, having the machine is of no use.
Renewable sources of energy like solar energy, tidal energy and wind energy should be relied upon more than those which are non-renewable.
It's high time that we realize the threat posed by quickly depleting energy sources and start working on finding new sources of energy. Reducing energy consumption should be the first aid, and it is most economical as well.
Energy-consumption abuse not only results in loss of financial capital (short-term loss), but in long-terms, it is a huge loss of natural resources, as the main sources of energy are mostly non-renewable sources. It affects our environment, too, due to air pollution, soil pollution, radioactive pollution and water pollution. The use of adulterated diesel and leaded petrol leads to increase in lead content as high as 30-50 mg/dl, in the atmosphere. Spraying of pesticides, use of CFCs, burning of garbage and smoking of cigarettes contributes to air pollution. Nuclear explosions and nuclear tests are responsible for the addition of radioactive pollutants. Overexploitation of resources, be it land or water and the industrialization process has resulted in considerable environmental degradation of these resources along with the pollution of these and the other environmental parameters.
Energy has become a vital necessity for people. It is such a demanded need that current consumption levels surpass the quantity being supplied. This is the main reason behind the steeply escalating prices. Unless people start using energy more efficiently, the prices will only get worst and therefore create a worldwide crisis.
Most people in most countries are aware of the problems concerning energy use. Countries that produce energy tend to consume the largest amount of energy per capita. For example, Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar who produce more than half of the world’s oil based energy resources have per capita energy consumption levels thrice of developed countries. The second most energy consuming countries are the Baltic States, which is no surprise since their geographic location is near Arctic, it is normal for them to consume higher energy levels since they need year-round heating. The third biggest energy consumers are world powers ,whose highly industrialized economies require great quantities of energy for production.
However, there is a big gap between the rest of the world powers and the Usa. Germany and Japan who are two biggest worldwide exporters consume one third (per capita) the energy of the Usa. The Usa with 5% of the world's population consumes 25% of the world's energy, while Germany, Japan and Uk who also constitute 5% of the world’s population consume less than half the energy of the United States.
Why is the Usa consuming so much power? At first I thought it was lack of awareness. But With the high gas and electricity prices for three years now, it is hard to not be aware. Consumption levels have barely decreased even though prices have doubled in the last five years. This led to my second conclusion, they are selfish or they are never satisfied.
Going back to Germany and Japan, only around 10% of their energy uses are for entertainment, while in the Usa more than 30% are for entertainment purposes. These quantities are staggering, people in third world countries cannot afford one light bulb to light their house and people in the Usa are drive 25+ miles daily for pure entertainment. The stats above are entertainment only, at least they are getting “fun” out of their extremely high energy consumption levels.
Imagine how big the carelessness energy consumption percentage might be, probably just as staggering. It is impressive when international students walk into dorms to visit some friends who have the Pc, their Tv and even the radio on– and they are not using any of them. What is worst is when people tell them to “save energy.” It is sad when they greedily answer "I am paying for it." Going into debate with them about this is futile. This is especially irritating to international students, which on average pay twice the tuition than local students and yet have no problem conserving energy. It must make them sick to see such a selfish act, consuming energy without need just for spite of a high tuition fee.
Energy consumption has become one of the greatest issues these years.Because People pay more attention the sustainable development.Although the problem of energy consumpion has been already put onto the table,there are still many people do not get enough awareof the importance.I believe, to reduce the energy consumption should start by every individuals,for example,we can quickly find out electrical cost by a/c stands a very big rate in elexctrical power,especially in the summar of some big cities,The central air-conditioning systems in many office buildings run 24 hours everydays, 365 days every years.Minimizing the use of air-conditioner, and get fresh air by opening the window is a very simple thing for us to do,but when it is accumulated,it can be a very big reduction.
There are so many easy things for us to do to reduce the energy consumption, I think big countries should give more powers to let people t be aware of problem. Once more people realize it, our life must be more wonderful
Energy consumption and environment pollution are the two major issues that we are facing today. Fuel fossil is still the big energy resource of human production and living now. With the growth of global energy using and the unscientific of using energy, non-renewable energy such as fossil fuel will become increasingly depleted and it has a serious impact on the environment. People are urged to find renewable energy source such hydrogen energy, wind energy, and solar energy. We use energy conservation to easily replace non-renewable resources with renewable energy. On the other hand, people have to pay more attention on the importance of saving non-renewable energy. Denmark and Germany have started to make investments in solar energy. They are the good examples for other countries especially large-population countries. If everyone can turn off the air condition one hour, the sum of energy we saved will be expanse hundreds of thousands of times.
There are many ways we can do to save energy, right now the important thing is to let more people realize the importance of saving energy, especially the countries which are the big energy consumers in the world.
Without any doubt, energy consumption is one of the most concerned global problems we are facing, not only right now, but also in the not so far future. A report draw a conclusion that as the current oil consumption rate, if no more new oil source is discovered by the human, the current oil will deplete in one hundred and forty days. It’s not a long time. Can you image the day that all the oil will deplete and how your grand grand children will face that?
Besides developing new technology of using renewable energy sources, like solar energy, hydrogen energy and wind energy, to replace fossil sources, what we have to do now is to conserve energy as mush as possible. What surprised me is that currently almost half of the residential energy consumption is spend on space conditioning, like heating and cooling. So, I suggested that the basic energy consumption method is to adjust the temperature of your air condition, like raising the temperature one degree during the summer and lowering it one degree during the winter, shutting down it while you are away, and opening the window while the outside temperature is just acceptable during spring and fall.
It is exactly what the government of Beijing, the capital city of China, did and it has been reported that the electricity consumption has lowered 12%. I suggested Purdue University add this simple method to its “Go Green” program to let students be aware of the energy consumption they wasted on air conditions.
Energy is everything. We use energy to do everything we do, from making a jump shot to baking our favorite cookies to sending astronauts into space. We may be surprised to see how much energy people consume...
We may be more surprised to see how dependent we are on energy.
However, we get most of our energy from nonrenewable energy sources, which include the fossil fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal. Every day we need more and more energy, but it is not infinite on the Earth, so one day people may be in trouble of lack of energy.
Most homes in the world still use the type of light bulb invented by Thomas Edison over 100 years ago, but these incandescent bulbs are not efficient! Only about 10% of electricity they consume converted to light, the other 90% converted to heat, which is not needed. And then we use more energy to cool our rooms...
The United States is a highly industrialized country, and currently the largest consumer of energy in the world. The US uses more petroleum than any other energy source. Petroleum provides the US with more than 38 percent of the energy it uses each year. Petroleum can't be used as it comes out of the ground, it needs to be refined before it can be used. Oil refineries use a lot of energy to convert crude oil into gasoline, diesel fuel and other products.
But when we say the use of energy, we don't only mean the oil, electricity or gas. All around us is somehow connected with an energy. People use enormous amounts of paper every day - newspapers, books, bags, and boxes are all made of paper. Energy is used in every step of paper making! Energy used to chop, grind, and cook the wood into pulp. More energy is used to roll and dry the pulp into paper. In 1973, the amount of energy needed to make one ream (500 sheets) of copy paper was equal to 3.7 gallons of gasoline. Today the advanced technologies, the energy used to make the same amount of paper would equal just two gallons of gasoline.
And in my opinion by developing technologies we are able to reduce the amount of energy we spend. And also by finding new alternative sources of energy, we can reduce the dependency of the mankind of the nonrenewable energy sources.
People used to think that if the global population keeps growing larger and larger; we will run out of food eventually. However, the truth is that the food we are capable of producing is much more than our actual demand; and it's the lack of distribution of food led to starvation at some places such as Africa. So when food supply is not an issue, energy consumption issues tend to be the most urgent.
As we all know, the increasing price of fuel tends to be a common concern for every one of us. As the articles stated, the real reason behind the phenomenon is our large consumption of fossil fuel and also other energy sources. It's going to be a revolution of reliable energy resources as we get to the point when we are eventually out of our dependent resources such as fuel and coal. As a student of engineering, I hope that we will substitute those with renewable sources one day. I hope, as a whole, the world will find its success in utilizing renewable resources such as wind power, solar energy, and hydro power. The three Georges Dam in China utilizes hydro power to send out electricity. Denmark, as a pioneer, started to utilize wind power back in 1970. Both countries deduced their pollution due to the act of utilizing natural, renewable power. I hope that we see a future of energy resources and we see a future of the earth’s environment.
Energy should be consumed appropriately and it should be shared equally. This is a huge problem in India. India is both an energy producer and a consumer. It is the worlds eleventh greatest energy producer. It produces 2.4% of the total energy. But due to the vast population of the country the energy is not distributed well. The cities and industrially and economically developed areas consume much more energy then the rural areas. Each time there is a shortage of energy the government compensates for that by regular power cuts in the under-developed regions. Moreover, the rapid economic growth in the country is also going to affect the energy consumption. The better the living standards the more energy will be consumed on average.
Energy consumption is a basic necessity in today's era and also a major concern. The articles clearly suggest that the high energy consumption today is causing a major threat to our civilization and it must be checked at all cost.
We heavily rely on these sources which makes the situation worse. It also causes other economic problems like price hike and inflation which affect the common man gravely.
We must find an alternative before we run out of conventional energy resources and meet with severe crisis.
There have been researches and advancement towards generating energy from unconventional resources like hydro-energy, tidal-energy, nuclear-energy.
The majority of fuel usage throughout the world is definitely in the transportation sector. People use all sorts of vehicle without caring about the environment as well as the future.
I think that all of us should unite and fight for this cause. We should all try and conserve energy in every possible way.
We should prefer to commute via public transport, thus using less cars and hence, saving fuel. Another way is to promote hybrid cars which run on electricity besides fuel.
I think, it is of utmost importance that every human being should contribute towards this cause and thus help conserve energy.
What energy to society is food to people. Energy conservation is important to us. I lived in a residence hall named Shreve during the first few days after I arrived Purdue. The TV in the activity room was kept being turned on 24/7. And the air condition kept rooms chilly instead of cool. So my first impression of American was that they don’t care about energy conservation. After I moved to the hilltop apartments, I noticed that one of my roommates keeps turning off every bulb in our apartment before she goes to sleep. My parents were always demand me to turn off the lights if I won’t need them.
In Beijing, government encourages people to use public transportation. They increased the tax of purchasing vehicles and decreased the cost of riding buses and subways. During the Olympic Games, the government provides that the car with number plate of odd number can be drove on the date of odd number, and the car with number plate of even can be drove on the date of even. Thus it can help relieve the traffic pressure. and I think that is also a good way of energy conservation.
Energy consumption is growing every year. And many people are worried about the earth running out of energy. Although many method of producing electricity, which is our primary energy, are available, the world’s most common method is by using petroleum. Petroleum is also used to produce gasoline for the automobiles. Some people think that Arab countries, which are providing huge portion of petroleum, are running out of petroleum. Of course the petroleum buried is not infinite amount, but I think there is still enough for half-century at least. I assume that based on how petroleum is extracted is not like how we drain water from lake, it is more like vacuuming the floor. Because the petroleum is stuck in between the rocks, and once the pressure of the certain spot gets low, it flows to that spot to raise the pressure, and that is when petroleum is sucked into straw-like structure and come out to ground. This means that it is really hard to measure or even estimate how much petroleum actually we have on the earth. I am not saying we don’t need to worry about conserving energy. But, sometimes people are freaked out about this theory of running out of energy.
When speaking about energy consumption, I immediately relate it to the global warming that we have clearly seen during the past years, even decades. Drastic negative changes have been happening to the environment, and it's mostly the cause of high energy consumption. Obviously, this is a sensitive topic that has been taken into serious consideration by any conscious person in the planet.
From factories to offices, from homes to cars, we see the high energy consumption everywhere. As shown in the articles, each country has an average energy consumption percentage, and the USA has some of the highest statistics. This energy dependability has been shifting our way of life for too long. We say we need to decrease our high energy consumption but, what are we really doing to help this cause?
As we can see in the current market, the "go green" trend has become very popular in every day consumption. Industries and companies are working towards lowering their energy consumption and cost, products are made to be eco-friendly, and some countries even have a min temperature for their household's AC. Even though I think they are just doing this to satisfy the trend, I think it's been a positive improvement that should keep dominating the leading markets. I also believe this trend is here to stay and that more people should get more engaged in this cause and do their parts to lower energy consumption, pollution, and help decrease this global warming. Replacing light bulbs to more energy efficient ones, controlling the AC, taking advantage of public transportations, and turning off the lights when not necessary, are just some minor things that can be done in any common household and can make a huge improvement in our energy consumption dilemma. I just hope everyone is as environmentally conscious as I am, and can work together, lowering overall energy consumption to better our planet.
Million and million years took to create the non-renewable energy source such as the fossil energy; they are the most spending energy sources. However, human being spent more than half of them already in past couple of centuries. Since the industrial revolution, the rate of consumption of the non-renewable energy sources has been increasing exponentially. This rate is currently accelerating rapidly as the energy usage of the developing countries with the huge population has been increasing. In this rate, all the non-renewable energy sources will be exhausted in next fifty years. The worse problem is the human being has no efficient alternative energy source for the future energy crisis. Scientists and engineers are trying to develop the next-generation energy source, but there are many technical issues. Sometime in the future it will be overcome with the better technology, but we don’t know when it will be. Till then, the only thing we can do is sparing the limited energy sources that we have now; if we don’t want to give up the convenient of the civilization.
Post a Comment