Session 8:

Today was a very interesting topic as Energy is something that has been talked about for a very long long time. It caused me great amusement when prof showed the following quote to the class:

“IF EVERYONE CONSUMED AS MUCH ENERGY AS THE AVERAGE SINGAPOREAN AND U.S. RESIDENT, THE WORLD’S OIL RESERVES WOULD BE DEPLETED IN 9 YEARS”

-The energy report by WWF.

Many of us in Singapore think that USA people are consuming a lot of energy. So being quoted along with US citizen came as a shock to many people including me at first. Then I realised that it is in fact true that we, Singaporeans are consuming much more energy than people in other south-east Asian countries or even from Asia. Just take a look at SMU, although it has many energy consuming practices such as the elevator slows down when no one uses it, or the lights are switched off when they do not sense motion in the room, yet, during all the seven days of the week you see students preferring to sit in GSR rather than outside. There are also many students who book an entire GSR just for themselves. This means that one person uses the same amount of energy as do 5-6 people when they sit in a group in a GSR. So its not really that shocking that Singapore is also compared to USA for energy consumption.

Well moving on prof provided an insight to how society is now moving towards environmentally friendly and sustainable clean and green approach from the past unsustainable fossil fuel-based energy intensive economy.

Then we looked at some of the drivers for global energy change. Energy change is occurring due to many reasons such as:

1.      Rising energy consumption

2.      Need for sustainability

3.      New technologies and approaches.

Governments are also taking a keen interest in energy change because of international pressures as well as need for sustainability. For instance, Europe has banned all conventional light bulbs. This means that in entire Europe, one can only find Led lights used. These lights help to save a lot of energy as less energy is wasted because they produce less amount of heat.

Prof also mentioned that there have been rumours that the next Steve Jobs, that is a person who can change the world we live in, is very likely to come from the energy sector. In my opinion, this is can become true. This is because energy is required for all our daily chores and without energy we will suffer immensely. Thus, new, innovative ideas are required urgently to ensure sustainability and there is likely possibility that when we find a solution to the energy problem, world we see in the future will no longer be the same.

One interesting idea is that the sun provides us with the most amount of energy. It “provides more energy to the Earth in one hour then humankind currently uses in an entire year!” This means that we only have to tap less than 1% of the sun’s energy for our daily use. So imagine if we can tap around 2% daily the energy provided will be more than sufficient for the entire world! Well in my opinion, the next Steve Jobs just might be the person who will come up with an idea to tap the sun’s energy.

The lecture then turned towards solar energy usage. Germany is the world’s largest investor in solar energy. It is ironic that Germany has taken such a big interest in solar energy because the country does not get as much sun time as many other countries do. Some ways in which Germany has encouraged the usage of solar energy is that it has given cash incentives to the people who install solar panels. They also pay less for the electricity and the electricity price will remain the same for the next 20 years for the people who use solar panels. This means that when the price of electricity goes up, they will not be charged according to that new price.

As per normal when there are new innovations, people tend to be apprehensive of the new innovations and do not take willingly to them. It is the same for green technology too and thus it is important that measures are taken by government to encourage the usage of green technology. Some measures which were brought forward by the prof were education, subsidies, tax credits, compulsory standards etc. These measures will help to facilitate the change towards green technology.

My personal rating for this session is 8.5/10