More and more people in the world are driving cars that run on oil. More
and more people in the world are using electricity that is created by the
burning of coal. These human activities have repercussions (like carbon
emissions) that are drastically affecting the state of our planet. Due to these
drastic issues, researchers and scientists have been trying to come up with
other resources to be used as alternatives to fossil fuels.
So as to halt the problems of global warming, greenhouse effects, and
other issues, people are calling for the transition away from fossil
fuels. Some are calling for the usage of ethanol instead of oil. While others
claim that windmills and solar panels are the future gateways for storing
energy. With all of these alternative ideas, there are many others who are
skeptical about the transition away from fossil fuels. In his article “21st
Century Energy: Some Sobering Thoughts,” Vaclav Smil explains that given our
rates of consumption it is going to be extremely difficult for this transition
to happen. Even though Smil does have some interesting points, there is a bit
of a flaw in his argument. Smil argues that given
our current capabilities and the existing insatiable appetites of the world’s people, it is going to be
hard to use new alternative energy sources. In other words, Smil believes in
“technological sustainability,” and that the only way for people to progress is
for them to change the methods by which they obtain resources. He says, “Other
renewable energy flows (like those from windmills and solar panels) could not
cover today’s worldwide total primary energy supply.” In other words, Smil
believes that the lifestyles of humans should not be
altered/changed. Instead, new innovations need to be created to allow for our ways of life to continue as they are.
As evidenced in his article, Vaclav Smil is extremely pessimistic about
humanity’s ability to transition away from fossil fuels. He says that the scale
of shift to a new energy source is going to be extremely enormous and
difficult. Also, in his article it is stated, “today there is no readily
available non-fossil energy source that is large enough to be exploited on the
requisite scale.” The existing fossil fuels being used provide a lot more
energy that any other alternative energy sources. So, there doesn’t seem to be
any alternative energy source that has enough energy to keep up with our
lifestyles and rates of consumption. Smil contends that storage issues would
arise if human beings were to actually use windmills and solar panels. For
example, “because wind and direct solar radiation are intermittent and far from
predictable, they could never deliver such high load factors like those of
thermal electricity generators.” All in all, Vaclav Smil is not confident about the
reliability of using non-fossil fuels as energy sources.
With all of these pessimistic views that Smil presents in his paper, one
wonders what our planet will be like if human beings did not “meet” the energy
demands. Well, such an image reminds me of something stated in Professor
Smith’s lecture. I think that the world would be a devastating and ugly one
where countries are having wars over resources with many people dying because
they don’t have the sufficient means to survival (i.e. food, water, etc). Such
a world would also have many natural disasters like hurricanes and floods
happening as a result of global warming. Such a horrid image could be contrasted
to what our world would be like if human beings did make a difference to make
the Earth a better place. I think such a world would be very communal where
people would grow their own food and share it with those in their community.
People would hardly ever use cars, and as a result the highway systems would
become massive bike trails. This is a bit of a drastic idea, but it is
something that could possibly happen if our processes became sustainable. Whatever
the case, it is important to be educated about the state of our planet.
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