Energy has been around ever since earth formed. As humans grew more sophisticated, they needed to use more and more energy. Now that energy is a necessity, people without sufficient energy are at a disadvantage, which consequently creates energy poverty. Energy poverty is when the negative effects of dirty fuels and the excessive time spent collecting that fuel is adversely impacting a large amount of people’s health. Today, energy poverty is a big problem in the world for many reasons. Millions of people are being affected by energy poverty and millions more die from it. Unfortunately, not everybody recognizes energy poverty as a problem and the ones who do, rarely attempt to make a difference. Energy poverty is a very urgent and imminent problem that impacts many people around the world.
History
Humans have been looking for ways to use energy for thousands and thousands of years and as people have grown more intelligent, they have found new and creative ways to use that energy. The first energy source available to humans was the sun; it has been a useful energy source for millions of years. It is, in fact, responsible for sustaining all life on this planet. The sun is the beginning to most energy on earth. After the sun, came fire, which was first used for warmth and light. As time went on, people started using it for preparing foods and building tools. As population grew, so did the dependency on fire. By the 1500’s, Great Britain had to switch from wood energy, to fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. This increase in population led to wood shortages all over the world. As coal started to replace wood as the primary energy source, engineers started finding different ways to use coal as energy. This change was ca...
... middle of paper ...
...ude sustainable energy. For this to happen, one needs “to focus … on trying to find sustainable solutions that can go to scale, that can impact the lives of, ideally, billions of people impacted by these negative issues” (Simon Bishop). For energy poverty to be completely eradicated, one has to find an energy source that is cheap and sustainable. To achieve universal access to energy, “we need … $48 billon dollars a year. … 8 [billion dollars that we are spending now on energy poverty] cannot do that, so you need to bring in a private sector” (Kandeh Yumkella). This shows that it is very expensive to achieve universal access to energy, so if one was to discover a cheaper, more sustainable energy source, it could solve worldwide energy problems. Although not many different approaches have been tried, energy poverty is a very solvable problem.
Works Cited
Yumkelhah
Introduction The reliance on other countries for fossil fuels that produce energy has put the United States of America at risk of being pulled into unstable regions around the world, jeopardizing international relationships and putting its own citizens in harm’s way. America needs to balance both the pursuit of alternative energy solutions and reducing energy usage. Our military runs on fossil fuels produced by other nations who do not have similar interests or values as the United States, ultimately adding unwanted risk that becomes difficult to manage. There are advantages to alternative energy solutions that could allow for America to become an independent energy nation, eliminating the need to support and stabilize various regions around the world. The U.S. Military needs to reduce its overall energy usage by taking advantage of breakthrough technologies that could be integrated into current systems.
The most widely used poverty measures of Foster-Greer- Thorbecke (FGT) do not show when poverty might be eliminated. But, in this section we will try to answer for the question how long are they going to stay in poverty? following Morduch, (1998) approach which is based on Watts poverty index and FGT class of poverty measures. Morduch shows that a simple linear transformation of the Watts index gives it cardinal properties that can be useful as well.
Generational conflicts, political strife, environmental regulations, stakeholders in big oil, and many more hurdles affect the push to fully sustainable economies around the world and even here in America. In a world where coal, oil, and natural gas are limited, countries are gobbling it all up as fast as they can before other poorer countries come on the grid. Even though America and other countries gobble up these resources the life of the people is still a struggle to meet basic needs. Sustainability is an intermingling of resource use and protection of the “quality of life”, it is met by using resources sparingly and by recycling or reducing the use of other non-renewable resources to provide for our immediate need, but also to conserve and protect the needs of the next generation and to improve the quality of all the lives to come.
Our energy needs have significantly changed since the first Industrial Revolution that took place in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. Before this time period, our energy needs were modest. For heat, people relied on the energy of the sun, but when it failed them, they burned wood, straw and dried dung. For transportation horses and the power of the wind was used in sails. For agricultural work animals were used to do the jobs that could not be done with man labor. By harnessing the power of steam and wind simple machines could be run to grind our grain and pump our water. The Second Industrial Revolution, also called the Technological Revolution is considered to have begun around the time of the introduction of the Bessemer steel in the 1860s. This technological Revolution is considered as the second phase of the Industrial Revolution that resulted in factory electrification, mass production, the creation of production lines and the development of machine tools. With the appearance of the low cost automobile and the wide spread of electricity our society's energy needs have changed forever. Since the modest beginning of the oil industry in the mid 19th century, petroleum has risen to global dominance leading to mass consumption as the primary fuel to generate electricity, heat, to power our homes, cars and to support economic growth. Unfortunately, as a consequence of industrialization, atmospheric CO2 levels started to rise in proportion to the usage of fossil fuels. This trend raises some concerns about the well being of our environment, and researchers around the world started to look for alternative, cle...
Second, what was slated as a project that would bring low cost or free energy to the impoverished regions may
MR: First of all, to get a new energy system, new jobs have to be created; so, economy grows up. Secondly, it is estimated that energy can get cheaper in a 20-year term. Lastly, having clean energy means having a cleaner world, which is positive to ourselves because it makes us healthier (“The Solutions Project”, 2011).
Coal was the cutting edge of energy generation before any other source was extensively used. Wood, wind, water, and muscle power provided nearly all of the energy before the widespread adoption of coal. The greater energy density of coal provides a greater efficiency than these other methods of generating power; combine that greater efficiency with its ease of transportation and coal easily becomes the fuel of a nation. In its early days, coal was mined and consumed in England, a country short on wood and usable water power. This shortage in other areas left a gap that the relatively cheap coal could fill. Coal allowed for industry and manufacturing to grow and produce profits greater than almost any other industry. Coal gained its popularity mainly because it had an economic value in that it provided energy in quantities and in locations that were unobtainable and unreachable for the other energy sources at the time. This start in England led to momentum in ta...
From the home to factories, families and industries are reliant on the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels to feed the needs of the everyday human. Fossil fuels are the main source of energy over clean, renewable sources such as the use of wind, solar energy, and water to power our homes, schools, and industries. In fact, about 85% of energy use comes from fossils fuels. The main reason being that using fossil fuels is cheaper than wind and solar energy. “For nearly two centuries, fossil fuels have been the cheapest source of energy” and widely abundant (Marburger, A global framework: international aspects of climate change). However, overtime fossil fuels will disappear due to the lack of time to replenish itself with the human races rapid use of it. Despite its current status of availability, there are many controversial issue in using fossil fuels; the most prominent issue being that it is the cause of rapid climate
There are 180,00 families in America living a sustainable lifestyle and roughly around 1.7 billion people worldwide living without depending on the grid. (Palameri 1; Perez qtd. in Wood 1). The number of Eco villages, sustainable and intentional communities are rising across the nation as more people are discovering that they possess a strong inclination to live in the same manner as the Amish. This phenomenon is becoming a progressively popular choice for people from all walks of life. Not only are environmentalists and survivalists escaping the city life in efforts to live off the grid, but single families and people who are seeking to explore a simplified lifestyle are also joining the trend.
The year is 2200. The world is going through a fossil fuel shortage. Oil reserves are almost completely consumed and it is becoming impossible to find new fossil fuel sources. Not prepared for this event to occur, The United States, has no alternative options. As a result of the oil shortage, the standard of living deteriorates. Heat in homes, supermarkets full of food, and transportation, all basic necessities taken for granted, will be depleted because fossil fuels are used to power almost everything. The key to the prevention of this future is renewable energy. Unfortunately the support for the use of renewable energy is weak and ineffective. Unless the US puts forth effort to research and promote the use of renewable energy to consumers, conversion from fossil fuels to renewable energy will no longer be an option.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, over half of the oil used in the USA is imported. Most of this imported oil is located in the middle east and is controlled by OPEC members. Subsequent oil price shocks and price manipulation by OPEC have cost our economy dearly—about $1.9 trillion from 2004 to 2008—and each major shock was followed by a recession (Reduce). We may never be able to fully eliminate our need to import oil, but we can reduce cartel market control and the economic impact of price shocks by reducing our demand (Reduce). One way we can reduce our reliance on oil is through investing in renewable energy. Solar power, wind power, and hydro power are all forms of energy which come from renewable resources. Unlike oil, solar, wind and hydro electric power is abundant and can be obtained locally.
We depend on energy; nothing in our daily lives could be possible without it. Electricity primarily comes from burning fossil fuels or using nuclear reactors. But the plain truth is, we are running out of fossil fuels. Our known oil deposits will run out in approximately 35 years, and if we increase the use of natural gas and coal to make up for the energy loss, our natural gas will last for 45 years and coal deposits will deplete in 75 years.
The world that we live into today affords us the expectation that the flip a switch will turn the lights on. As populations increase and developing nations undergo dramatic economic growth, this energy demand will only continue to grow. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that “the world’s energy needs could be 50% higher in 2030 than they are today” (ElBaradei). Given this projected growth, it is necessary for world leaders must take action to secure the energy supply. Meaning that world leaders need to start seriously considering an alternative to non-renewable energy sources. “In 2012, the United States generated about 4,054 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. About 68% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuel (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), with 37% attributed from coal” (U.S. Energy Information Administration). The fossil fuels that are used to supply over half of our country’s energy are in finite supply and are increasing in price to astronomical heights.
For years man has relied on energy in order to be successful in life. The industrial revolution relied on coal for the new inventions brought into the world. Life as has never been the same since then. However since that time, there has been little done to improve on energy efficiency and humans still primarily rely on fossil fuels for energy. For over a hundred years the Earth has become more polluted and dirtier than ever before. Now, with new, innovative technology there is an opportunity to change that and to rely on renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The main source of energy for the world should be alternative energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.
middle of paper ... ... g the Energy Revolution." Foreign Affairs. Nov/Dec 2010: 111. SIRS Issues Researcher.