TWC 8th Lesson!

Believe or not.. Recess week is wayyyy busier than school term week.. there's not enough time to catch up on all the projects.. not to mention to study and revise the topics taught so far..

okay.. first TWC class after recess week, my 8th TWC class.

Today's topic is on: Energy and World Change. We touched briefly on the past of energy and the class mainly focused on renewable energy and if it was the desired outcome of the future.

First, let's start off with the KEY takeaway for today's lesson.

"If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singaporean and U.S. resident, the world's oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years."

Notice the italic part. This is ironically funny because everyone of us are pointing fingers at the U.S. for using 30% of the world's resources when their population only makes up 5% of the world's population yet we Singaporeans are just as guilty of the high usage of resources. Maybe we should start looking at our habits and start conserving some energy!

Moving on, one interesting thing point is currently, our world's oil reserves can last for another 40 to 60years. According to statistics for year 2008, renewable energy makes up 19% of Final Energy consumption while 78% makes up of Fossil Fuel.
Our aim is to be totally dependent on renewable energy sources like wind and hydraulic energy by 2050.
In my opinion, it is quite impossible. My view is that it is possible to make up for about 50-60% of the world's energy sources. The main factor is that our world's population is still growing at a fast pace. It is projected to grow another few billion, estimated to reach about 9.5billion. With higher population, the energy usage will naturally go up. Also, with the development of countries, their expectation and demand for energy sources will increase as well. I believe the increase in renewable energy is not enough to accommodate the increase in population and the increase in demand for energy.

Another interesting point is that the sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in an entire year. If only we can fully capture this energy sources, our worries about energy sources depleting would be over! Maybe we should start looking at how to capture the energy from the sun(solar power) more efficiently.

Renewable energy sources are everywhere.
Above the ground: Sun, Wind, Water, Biomass, Waves
Below the ground: Coal, Lignite, Oil, Gas, Geo-thermal, Uranium

There are actually many sources of renewable energy. I believe if the world aims to work towards a greener direction together, we could have easily done it. The problem with it now is that hardly anyone is feeling the anxiety or the significance of the depletion of natural resources.

Germany is currently the world's strongest investor in renewable energy, particularly solar energy.
They have thousands of solar panels that supply them with millions of watts of energy.
Their aim is to be self sufficient on energy. Their target was producing 20% of the energy on their own by 2020. It was deemed to be an impossible task when this idea was just introduced. However, their policy has been so effective that this is a highly possible target now and they could even potentially reach 30% self-sufficient on renewable energy.
So how does the government does it? Through Cash incentives.
The government enable people to sell the energy they "harvest" from sources such as solar panels. For example, the government pays them 50cents when they only buy the same amount with 20cents. This allows people to earn a small profit margin by investing in renewable resources. I think this is rather an effective policy as there is incentives for people to innovate in the aspect of renewable energy. The government may be paying at a "losing" rate in terms of monetary in the short run but in the long run, it is definitely more cost-effective and allows them to be self-sufficient.

Overall, I think today's class is pretty interesting and i rate it 8.5/10. :)
Cheers!