Thoughts on this topic already:
- Our country’s current energy supplier cannot meet this country’s (South Africa’s ) energy requirements. Like filth, garbage and cockroaches at a squatter camp – the results of poor service delivery equals a desensitised public. We have had load-shedding and load reduction for so many years it is now the norm. I’ve had to look up when loadshedding (when your part of the country is not going to have power as per the countrywide accepted energy supplier’s time-table) started : 2007 !!!
Looking for insights.
Interesting line from the Professor that energy is the “currency of civilisation”. He referenced:
Book:
Earth Systems: Processes and Issues, Cambridge
Univ. Press 1999
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) Per Capita graphed against Kw (Kilo-watt of energy ) per Capita – per unit of the population. Obviously then these numbers are affected by the countries actual population numbers as well, but what it could be said to show is how much an average unit in that country earns against energy spent. Also currency strength would affect the GDP calculations in dollars.
I’m personally not sure if this is a useful indicator of the development state of a country. All it says to me, is that some countries have high incomes versus others with lower income with varying levels of energy spend i.e. to make that income or even rather to exist and make that income. I mean, when I think of Canada – that place is cold – the amount they would need for heating just in order for their people to survive and exist might be far greater than the use of air-conditioning in SA where its warm (except for this Winter). People in SA can survive without having to use energy for heating and cooling mostly, so our kW/Capita use would already be less.
Now GDP per million BTU produced is a much better graph. It shows you who is better to produce energy than others. BTU stands for British Thermal Unit, it is the measure of energy that it takes to heat a pound of water by a single unit in fahrenheit.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/consumption/sub-topic-01.php – has useful information and gets updated regularly so the latest 2021 view is different to the 2017 view. It shows the world’s energy consumption.
Interesting article above, about how during the Corona Virus Pandemic – with all the work from home initiatives which should have reduced the amount of vehicle based fossil fuel pollution being released, we as human beings still did not manage to reduce the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere, which is interesting – because other species on the planet increased breeding grounds and changed behaviours because of human beings changing behaviours. My friend Dawie showed me a new colony of seals which started in the Cape over Covid, due to there being less traffic alongside that beach. I will ask if I can share that video soon and insert it here. So our personal lifestyle behaviour over Covid reduced traffic and its inherent pollution but did not show any reduction over CO2 emissions. This might mean that CO2 amounts are possibly due to industry and not only personal behaviours.
So under the understanding of Clean Energy, is as per these lectures, still the use of fossil fuels but having updated technology and processes to make them more effective and less polluting ie.:
- Coal : Coal quality ensures different percentages of pollutants sulphur and ash once utilised.
- Feedstock cleaning is the process of cleaning the supply of Coal in a way that reduces the amount of sulphur and ash that it releases.
- Crude Oil: Crude Oil quality is degrading to the point that sulphur percentages are increasing especially when refineries are using heavy crude in old processes vs the light crude oil the technology was originally designed for. So if we update and change processes in coal refineries we can have it optimised to use the latest quality of crude available but without so much pollution being released.
- Treatment Systems – we can also create treatments to manage the pollutants.
I think this part of the lecture shows that we are not willing to think out of the box and completely overhaul our understanding…We don’t want to rock the boat and change the status quo – we like burning up the old dinosaurs and vegetation, we obviously like making holes in the planet. Arghhhh!!!
The difference in the current light bulbs being utilised: pretty awesome!
Thoughts: What would happen in our country if:
- What would happen if our country moved entirely to the most efficient lightbulb use?
- What would happen if sensors managed all of the work districts lighting? (I’ve lived in JHB Johannesburg CBD, at 2 ‘o clock in the morning it is still super bright around – like a warm hanging orange combo of fumes and trapped building lights)?
- What would happen if all street lights were solar powered, charged during the day and on at night using the sun’s energy?
Will see if I can answer these questions through the course.
Coffee Break.
Other questions to ask?
- How can one move away from centralised power supply?
- What are the options to reduce our use of fossil fuels?
- What else are we mining, and does our use equate with wastage?