Blog 3 - - - Section 16

Reinventing the Energy System

Finding the worlds energy system to benefit all, including humans and the environment. Inefficient energy has become too available and cheap for people to even consider the impacts of creating it. Due to the limited resources and now realized pollution problems with fossil fuels, humans may find themselves in a transitional period back to Homo Sapien time, where people were independent, with renewable resources, and strive away from today’s dependent, limited, non-renewable resources. The human population has been shaped through history through the availability and types of power. The current population is beginning to strive away from fossil fuels, leading to a major change effecting the future populations. The reason oil was initially used, was to keep up the demand of the industrial revolution. More power was need and sprawl was occurring, removing industry from housing, creating much larger grids.
A problem with oil today, is that the sources are becoming depleted, but oil using countries have little to no growth in consumption. The main problem is supply the third world countries as they come online as oil dependent countries. These countries face the same problem experienced in the early twentieth century, with health and pollution problems. The types of fuels chosen by societies are really chosen at all. They found by a need to make cheap and easy power, example would be the use of wood until coal was discovered to be more effective, in turn replace coal with the even better fossil fuel. The cycle continues as more and more power is required.
The cycle is changing, many technologies are emerging that are threatening to replace fossil fuels, but this time with still more power, but also much more cleaner. New technologies will depend not on who has the most money and land, but rather who is in the right location. For example who has the most sun, which has the most wind. Many underprovided countries, most third world, can be considered ahead, by having the location and already using small scale renewable energy. The diffusion of renewable energy sources may also lead to more global co-operation, and bring smaller, less developed countries back into the loop.
The change will only occur when the energy used today is not looked at as a commodity, but viewed as something to be valued and saved. Used in respect of the natural environment, giving the planet a new lease on life as being “Renewably Sustainable”.

A topic like this always makes me wonder what direction the human race is headed in. I know understand the driving force behind our decisions, and its power. It’s neat how certain types of power are used and adapted, and even why they are discovered, it’s all for a need of something better. I think our view is pointed in the right direction now, unlike in the past. We need more energy, but our concern is focused around being conservative, sustainable, and efficient. Those three factors only lead to a better world, only problem is finding all the right steps and processes to make it happen.