The Focus on session 8 is on an issue which I believe is going to be evermore crucial as mankind progresses into the future. Energy. Out reliance on energy has grown exponentially in the past century with mankind ever so reliant on his usage of energy for development. Yet the primary means which we get our energy ( fossil fuels ) is almost primitive an comparison with all the other technologies that we are using nowadays. Furthermore, burning fossil fuels or any fuel’s in particular is based on simple chemical reaction of combustion and whatever fuel is burnt, be it fossil ( natural gas , oil ) or renewable ( bioethanol ) carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas, is still a by-product. In this lesson, the class and (some) readings gave an interesting perspective on alternative energy sources that could wean us off this addiction to fossil fuels.
There were two particular presentations which I must applaud for exposing us to revolutionary ideas. The first being the presentation about KiteGen. Although the thought of using kites to generate power seemed somewhat childish initially, however upon further elaboration into the workings of the one can deduce that there is strong scientific rational behind such a system ( exploiting the higher altitude winds ) albeit the airspace constraints, such a system could work well if employed in remote corners of the earth ( such as in remote parts of Russia ) where they could possibly provide energy for a myriad of scattered towns in the area.
Amanda introduced us to the idea of pumping geo – engineering and the somewhat controversial concept of pumping Sulphur Dioxide into the atmosphere. Although it may temporary help too cool down the earth, I fear that such a move would have even more disastrous effects in the long run. Just imagine the acid rain fall out that would occur form injecting large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. Surely this would be enough to cause wide spread damage to the forest of the world ( which will surely suffer from the effects of acid rain ) In my opinion, the side effects of destroying or damaging our forests and plants ( which act as a greenhouse gas absorber ) will outweigh any short term effects of reflecting some sunlight from the earth’s surface. It would probably be setting us up for an even worse ecological disaster, once our forest are slowly wiped out by a world wide flood of acid rain due to this unconventional idea.
Lastly, as I mention in the start of this blog. A particular topic I wish we could have discussed further would be the quest for entirely different forms or energy producing reactions ( such as antimatter or nuclear fusion ) . Would it be worthwhile for us to divert significant portion of research funding to perfect possible energy systems that could be derived form these two areas of cutting edge physics ? ( or any other similarly efficient , non-carbon dioxide producing chemical reaction ? )
class rating : 9/10
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