Powering the Sustainable Society

What do we need to consider when powering a sustainable community?  Some of the things to think about are: where the energy coming from, what it is being used for, and how is it being distributed (Ling, Lecture Notes, Feb. 11, 2011).  There are a number of different energy sources being used presently and these consist of: crude oil, coal, natural gas, biofuels, and nuclear power.  Not all of these sources are methods of clean energy, but there are several examples that are becoming more popular in today’s modern society.  Clean powering methods such as solar power, geothermal heating, or even wind power are becoming more common.  Energy sources can be classified into renewable and non renewable energy sources.  Sadly the bulk of the energy that is used globally consists of non renewable energy.  There has been an increase in the amount of renewable energy, but it still does not compare to the amount of non renewable energy that is being used.  This can be seen in the graph below. 

Image Source: Ling, Lecture Notes, 2011



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Since the bulk of produced energy gets used in industrial areas, this is reasoning for why clean energy is not being used as regularly as non renewable energy.  The use of heating methods such as natural gas or oil is mainly due to the relative simplicity of their heating or electricity methods.  Large scale industrial processes such as refineries or factories require large amounts of energy that would be difficult to provide by use of solar panels or wind turbines.  This is not to say it is not possible to provide energy to large scale processes, but clean energy were to be provided it would need to be done as a large scale project.  Large scale solar or wind power construction and implementation is extremely expensive, and when it comes down to it most companies would not be willing to spend the money when they could produce energy by less expensive means.  An example of one factory that is powered with clean energy is the Sun Chips factory that is powered with solar energy.  Not only did the implementation of solar energy save the company money in terms of energy costs, but it also increased the chip sales by 17.6%. 

I personally think that in order for a society to be sustainable it should be powered by sustainable or renewable energy.  This means that communities should be powered by wind, sun, and water.  The reliance on natural renewable resources would be a very positive move for countries to make if they want to provide a positive living environment for the current population as well as populations to come.  I think that in order for society to begin to accept and implement methods of clean energy they must first become more knowledgeable of it.  This could be done if the solar companies and wind companies were able to provide information about the pros and cons of their products, as well as if they had real values to present to potential customers about the pay back of the methods.   This could be done with trial projects, such as the T’Sou-ke Nations solar project that was mentioned in an earlier blog.  This community acts as a role model for other potential solar communities and it provides a starting point and lots of guidelines for the implementation of a solar community. 

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On a Residential scale there are also ways to save energy and make society more sustainable and these are things that we can do by ourselves.  Homes can be retrofitted to make the household more energy efficient.  This would involve things like: re-insulating homes, using energy efficient light bulbs, sealing cracks that produce drafts, or even upgrading to a more efficient furnace (Ling, Personal Communication, 2011).  We can also decrease the number of appliances in our homes and this will reduce our energy usage, and overtime make the household sustainable. 

 Overall, there are a number of different ways of powering a sustainable society.  These ways include simple solutions such as reducing the amount of power being used in household by removing unnecessary appliances.  Another example would be to retrofit your home with solar or wind power or else something as simple as making simple fixes to a home.  By considering all of the different methods of power and where it is going to it becomes possible to power a sustainable society.     

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