In today’s lesson, we explored how and what roles that energy has played, impacted and changed the world, mainly on the past and into present since future and emerging technologies would be elaborated to a greater extent in the next lesson. In this lesson, we learnt in detail, existing problems that the world faces in terms of energy sources, several alternative sources of energy and also forms of energy that could possibly be a main source of energy in the decades to come. Energy these days can no longer come from simply the burning of fossil fuels and there is a need for people to tap onto newer technologies or research on existing technologies to open up alternative sources of energy that can support our energy-dependant world.
One of the ideas that caught my attention was what prof said, that despite the decrease in energy we have, one of the effects is that there is actually an increase in the productivity of men. Hence, this means that there is a more effective use of energy around the world. Although it is undesirable that we have a smaller source of energy, it shows that we have improved in the ways that have helped to conserve energy but also in utilising more ways to save energy as well as making sure that things are still done. In my opinion, this is actually better than finding solutions to our energy problems because there is a need for us to find ways to conserve energy and that it is proven that it is possible to conserve and yet produce the same or more amount of output. However in the long run, it is still better to look for more dependable sources of energy.
There are many exciting ways of how technology has evolved through the years in the aspect of energy. Especially in how some cars have been developed, such as the The Reva, India’s first electric car. The Reva runs on lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries and has been sold in India since 2001. I think that such technology has very progressive impacts on the society especially in the area of environmental problems. Since the Rev runs on batteries, it would not produce any toxic fumes such as carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide that would add onto the problem of global warming or acid rain. Imagine if the whole of India or in fact, the whole world uses such a technology, we would have gotten rid of one possible source that causes global warming entirely. However we must also factor into the fact that more research needs to be done to ensure the effectiveness of these cars and that these cars are able to run longer mileages.
Fact is, many countries are continuing and in research to promote and use alternative sources of energy such as USA, European Union, India, China, etc, with each investing in their plans to develop and explore ways for a breakthrough in technology. And there is a need for such research to quicken and creation of sources that not only benefit ountries financially, but in a way where they can ensure that there are no negative externalities to be suffered. Also I feel that there is a need for developing countries to improve their rate of energy use since at least 60% of the world energies is often used up by these countries, as seen in the reports.
Overall, I feel that this session was a rather informative one, as we looked into energy and how the world has changed causing changes in energy. And we learnt a lot on alternative sources of energy in which countries are walking and developing towards. I would rate this session a 8 out of 10.
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