Session 8's main topic was on Energy and World Change, focusing on the history of it, the current situation today and what we expect in the future.
Considering the huge amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, it has brought about issues concerning rising global warming. This definitely isn't doing anyone any good. Since it would be quite impossible to totally eliminate carbon dioxide, one alternative would be to make full use of it by giving it a value. We went on to discuss about solar panels to capture energy. I particularly like this diagram:
And I think it makes sense. Surrounding us are so many sources of energy, yet we focus a great deal on tradeable ones such as coal, oil and gas. How about rays from the sun? Or wind and waves? Well, I know the rays given out by the sun seems unlimited and there is a lot of energy that can be captured from it. Imagine maximizing the generation of electricity in one day. How much energy would that be? Someone mentioned during class that the energy that the sun provides in an hour would be able to last us for year or more. No idea how true that is, but if it's so, I guess we really don't have to worry much about depleting sources anymore (Not until the sun is gone. hmm.)
How do we reduce the consumption of energy resources, fossil fuels and other perishable resources, yet still able to maintain or increase the GDP growth rate? - Renewable resources is the way to go. However, solar energy is still not being fully utilized in the right way at this stage. Prof showed us a video on how Germany was so successful in utilizing solar energy. - Cash Incentives given to people. They buy a unit of energy at a low cost and sell it off at a higher price, enabling them to make a little profit. Solar panels were displayed everywhere on the roofs of their houses. Wonder how it would be like to have every HDB block displaying panels like that too. Or perhaps, our windows! Now that would be making better use of the energy from the sun.
There was a powerpoint slide on the Reva - India's first electric car. Seems that it can be charged up through a power socket. With the stored energy, it acts as a portable battery which is able to power the car to last for many miles! That's so cool. Generating electricity from the sun --- used to power up cars alone --- We'll be able to save so much on fuels. It led me to brainstorm for some random ideas related to my group project on kinetic energy too.
Session seems short. We then moved on to the readings. And I agree with what was said about having a fixed but wrong mindset. People can save (anything) as much as they want but if they don't change their mindset to consume lesser, it wouldn't make any difference. In this case, again, it would probably be most applicable to the U.S., whose people are still consuming too much resources. And basically, it is really also up to individuals to decide for themselves. For example, owning a vehicle. One per family would definitely be sufficient but still, there are many households owning 2, 3 or even more vehicles. It is true that people do feel that they have the right to own them but now it would be more of consideration for the future as a whole? Government's attempts to persuade citizens to travel by public transport instead; Building so many MRT tracks everywhere, having bus stops almost everywhere too but the amount of cars on the roads are just increasing; People still willing to pay high prices for COEs.
However, one thing I would like to raise, as part of my own opinion is that, I could probably understand why some people are just dead set on getting a vehicle. I admit I was one of them (though lacking of funds of course), but the public transport is really horrible. JUST TODAY (Monday), i checked SBS website on my iPhone for the estimated arrival time of the next bus. Shockingly, it says "42 Mins". Totally shocked -.-lll. Isn't the first time I'm experiencing this but 42Mins is way to crazy. After the 42Mins would be 45Mins. LUCKILY, there's another bus stop in my estate where I could go to take another bus to Jurong East. Otherwise, I would only arrive for class at 1.30pm instead of 12noon. This is really bad. Depending on my luck, sometimes buses arrive fast (as in 3 buses in a row). Otherwise, there would be none, for at least half an hour. And the fares just rose like 2 days ago. Really feel irritated by the high price but bad service. Not worth at all! Complaints to them doesn't work either. Oh well!
Moving on to the presentations, I like the questions raised for discussions. It allows me to start thinking about alternative ways in which we can store energy. And one particular idea, also given by Suresh, was the hard-disk. Imagine being able to store energy in such a portable gadget, we could bring it anywhere we want to, just plug the cable in and start draining energy from it directly. one advantage of this would be where power points couldn't be found and people desperately needs electricity. I would want to own one of these ( Other than the non-environmental friendly batteries of course).
And so, I shall end off here saying that through this session, I learnt that there are indeed many ways in which we can fully utilize what we have but we are just not doing so. If we could start right now, with the right mindset, that's going to save us from lots of worries. Overall, i rate this session an 8.5 out of 10. :)
Just saw Yahoo's article on the most polluted cities:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/The-World-Most-Polluted-cnbcwp-694354027.html?x=0
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