Session 8!

Brief Summary:

How to achieve sustainability while continuing energy consumption?

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

Singapore was being lumped with U.S. to show high-energy consumption in the quote “If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singapore and U.S. resident, the world’s oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years”!

That came as a shock to me because in terms of size, Singapore is much smaller than any other countries. If we are to be compared to the usual energy guzzling U.S., we must be consuming more energy than we should!

Then I went to check online, http://www.lowcarbonsg.com/2009/05/14/overview-of-the-energy-situation-in-singapore/, it is true that Singapore is inefficient in its energy consumption, as the website states, energy intensity indicates efficiency of energy consumption.

How do we reduce our energy inefficiency?

From http://www.siew.sg/siew-news/singapores-champions-energy-efficiency, it is mentioned that there is an additional $22.8million for the Grant for Energy Efficient Technologies (GREET) scheme, to assist companies buying technology that would help them use energy efficiently. However, from what I see, if we only encourage people to “buy” technology, we will only become “managers”. Instead, the government should encourage the “research” of technology so we can become “leaders” in the field.

So far, I’ve only heard of Singapore aspiring to be a “business hub”, “biomedical hub”, “medical hub” but not “energy hub”. Furthermore, Singapore has plenty of sunlight (which is an energy source that has not been fully utilized), which other place better to try to harness the energy from the Sun?

Key take-away points:

The sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in an entire year.

We watched a video in class on solar panels, which brought me to think if we use more of solar panels in Singapore, we’d definitely be able to make better use of solar energy!!

For example, solar panels can replace bus stop shelters or other forms of shelters. Buildings can also be covered with solar panels. Furthermore, the top of cars can be solar panels too and the energy generated can be stored in a portable battery to be put in the car. This is to maximize the usage of current technology – solar panel.

There is another technology that I think solar panels can be used with – satellite technology. Currently, we use satellites mainly for communication purposes. However, they orbit the Earth and there will be some periods of time it “experiences” daylight! Furthermore, the satellites are not restricted by the amount of land available to install the solar panels.

The only problem may arise is how do we extract the energy collected from the solar-satellites? The energy may possibly be stored in a battery and we can try to make the satellite or the battery itself travel back to Earth.

Issues for further discussion:

How should a system of charging the use of energy be allocated to goods and services? Currently the goods and services’ prices in the world are often unreflective of the environmental damage to the planet. It is only fair that we are charged for the harm caused (like amount of carbon emitted from production of the item) so we do not waste resources and we can understand the relationship between consumption and energy usage or environmental degradation. Should all countries place the same amount of charges? Who will decide the amount of charges to place to each goods and services?

Personal Ratings for Session: 8/10!