Hey guys! I'm back from the one week recess break of hell and projects and assignments to complete. Been really busy with lots of school work during this recess week which should be renamed as project week or catchup work week! Today's session of TWC talks about Energy and World change. Oh ya and this lesson is the first ever lesson that ended early! amazingly and surprisingly! I can slowly stroll over to my next class after this wk's TWC lesson. YAY! Although lesson ended early this week, it was still filled with thought provoking content and interesting presentations although I felt this week's presentations wasn't very well done relatively when compared to other weeks' presentations. Prob the other presenters set a really high standard to keep up. Next week shall be my presentation finally... so guys pls look out for it and I'll really try my best to give a good one.
Today session about Energy and world change talks about the past,present and the future where we can go about in terms of energy especially in the area of renewable energy. Energy is very important in today's world as the current situation seems to be bleak. As prof mentioned, if the world consumes the amount of energy an average Singaporean or US citizen consumes, the world's oil reserve would deplete in 9 years time! Yes, 9 short pathetic years which can go past in a quick flash. This is how severe the problem is and there're people who predict that the world will end because of lack of energy, fossil fuel to power up the world. Right now the world still relies on almost 80% of unrenewable fossil fuel as energy sources. IF we continue this heavy dependence on fossil fuel which is unsustainable, we will be leading to a bleak future of destruction. What we should do is to shift to renewable and green energy sources like solar energy which shows great potential.
So what are some of the possibilities we can look into in the future for renewable energy sources. Prof mentioned that the sun provides more energy to the earth in one hour than humankind uses in a year. This means that solar energy has great potential in providing lots of energy however this also means the super high inefficiency of fully capturing the potential of this solar energy as solar energy only occupies 0.7% of the world's energy sources. Germany is a good example of a country tapping the potential of solar energy as seen in the video which prof showed us. Government policies plays a tremendous role in implementing this shift to green and renewable energy sources. This is seen in Germany where the government gives out incentives for the people to use solar energy. However, this only works in well to do developed countries like Germany where the government has the ability and money to provide such incentives. In developing or poor countries, how can they support such actions and they will continue to use cheap non renewable energy sources. Energy conservation and shift is a world wide global effort, the leading and developed countries should do their part to help the developing countries. Obviously one barrier of entry is the extremely high cost to change to renewable energy sources. Installation of solar panels are expensive and this is stopping many countries from switching over. However, a good leader should think long term, say in 100years time, what will happen to our kids, or our grand children if we still continue relying on non renewable fossil fuel. Will they be able to survive? We shouldnt be so narrow minded and just think of ourselves in the short run. I read in an article about this oil company Exonn Mobil which just refuses to invest into alternative renewable energy sources. They are very stubborn and continues to just concentrate on fossil fuels. This is due to their extreme high profits, greatly exceed the other oil companies that's why they believe since they are doing so well, why bother to take a risk and diversify into alternative oil sources which could affect their profits. I kinda disagree with Exoon CEO thinking which I feel is very short sighted. I'll be waiting for the day where fossil fuel runs out or when people switch to renewable energy sources and Exxon will be left lagging behind. When that day comes, let's see who has the last laugh.
In Singapore, Prof mentioned that he felt that Singapore has not been doing a good job in switching to renewable energy sources. I agree to a certain extent but Singapore do has certain initiatives and is very slowing trying to switch. the key word is very slowly...I mentioned in class that Singapore has built the first Eco green HDB in Punggol where it is run on solar power with solar panels installed on the roof top. Kenny who is one of the presenter, coincidentally stays in that block! I believe this is a good effort by the government and hopefully the rest of the HDB will be converted to this eco green concept. I think that the government is trying to use that Punggol HDB block as a case study and see how effective it is and only if it's effective then they will implement further actions to build more eco green HDB block. The cost of such solar panel is not cheap and the efficiency level may not be high enough to justify the cost. Being a practical government, they will not just plunge into this eco green concept. So I believe we need to give the government more time, and slowly we will be able to see more of such HDB.
One good strategy discussed in the class to help countries switch to green renewable energy sources is the use of taxation on fossil fuel. Countries can impose higher taxes on fossil fuels to reflect their externalities and with this money, they use it to build solar panels and invest in green technology. This is a good way to offset the high cost of new technology. However, this may not seem as easy as it seems. Oil companies are very powerful and have great influence in the world. They will not easily let this happen. What we can hope for is that green renewable energy technology can be improved with cheaper cost and higher efficiency and this will thus help to justify the switch over. Let's look towards this green future from now on!
Personal rating: 9/10
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