Energy And Renewable Electricity

Do you know that average 100w light bulb? Well, one African consumes as much as 7 of those light bulbs a year in electricity, Africa is nearly of the grid while an American consumes as much as 100 light bulbs. Current human energy use is 15,7 terawatts, that is 15,7 trillion watts, if everybody everywhere would start using electricity at the rate Americans do, the global consumption would more then quadruple to 62.8 TW.We produce electricity from several sources of which 87% is from fossil fuels like oil, coal or natural gas. Hydro-electrical power plants using the force of falling water around the world make about 7% of our production while nuclear power plants produce about 4%. Only 2% of the energy humans produce world-wide comes from renewable sources like the sun, the wind, using geothermal waters or tidal waves. So we rely our activity as a race on a dying giant, fossil fuels. They may have been a powerful resource in the past but we're burning through them a million times faster then nature provides them for us. They will go out one day.So let's see if we could rely our society strictly on electricity from renewable sources.The Sun delivers 173.000 TW on top of our atmosphere, that is 11.000 times our current use. The Algodones Dunes near Yuma, Arizona is the sunniest place in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records, there's barely a cloud in the sky 90% of the year. Researchers say that the deserts in South-West US could deliver 80% of the worlds current energy consumption. And there are other deserts much larger, like the Sahara desert in Africa. If we could collect 0.01% of the Sun's energy reaching the Earth it would be more than the humans use today. Of course there is only one problem with solar energy, night. But with more efficient transmission lines and a portfolio of renewable energy program that includes storage, the Sun's potential is vast.Dams around the world can provide 1,9 TW of hydro-electrical energy which is 12% of our current use. The Itaipu Dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay produces more electrical energy then any other hydro-electrical power plant in the world and it provides almost the entire energy need for the city of Sao Paulo, home to more than 11 million. Sao Paulo is 600 miles away but Brazil decided to build innovative high-voltage transmission lines to minimize energy loss. Dams can't be the solution for every country, they flood landscape and unbalance ecosystems, but Brazil showed renewable energy can go the distance.Plants like corn and sugar cane are used to produce Etanol which is mixed with gasoline or can be used alone as fuel for our cars. If all the gasoline in the would suddenly disappear, Brazil would be the only country that could go it alone and still run it's cars. Today all the cars in Brazil run on FlexFuel a biofuel made out of Etanol or a mix of gasoline and Etanol. Producing fuel out of plants used for food may have an effect on food prices but labs like the NREL in the US have lunched programs to see if biofuels can be made out of agricultural waste. It does work! And researchers are trying to bring the costs down. So with plants capturing roughly 11 times human energy use they are a growing opportunity.New Zealand takes advantage of another energy, geothermal power plants harvest the heat of the Earth brought to the surface by geysers and turn it as much as 10% of New Zealand's electricity. Globally geothermal energy offers 44TW of electricity, 3 times our current use. But we can can mine the heat faster than nature provides it. Heat is present even if you don't see geysers and mud pots so it can be extracted without harming this natural wonders. A study by MIT showed that the accessible hot rocks beneath the US contain enough energy to run the country for 130.000 years. And like hydroelectric, geothermal can provide peaking power, ready to go at a moment's notice if the Sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.And the wind blows everywhere, here is where US is very lucky. From Texas in the South to the Canadian border lies the Nation's Wind Corridor. All along this nearly 2.000 miles there's the potential to turn free, non-polluting energy source into electricity. But this takes decisions and actions and not by the government. In Texas it was farmers and ranchers who took the decision to rent their land so wind turbines could be installed. Now they receive between 5.000 and 10.000 a year for every turbine and with each farm hosting between 10 and 20 turbines it's a welcomed income. World-wide wind can provide 1.220 TW, that is 78 times current human usage. No form of energy production is free of environmental concerns, in the early days of wind farms there was little to no concerns for migrating birds, but studies showed that well placed wind turbines have no impact on the migrating habits of our little flying friends.And there is efficiency orientated measure that could be taken. Huston is the largest municipal purchaser of renewable energy. LED lights have been installed for the traffic lights and smart meters installation for homes is already ahead of schedule. 30% of the electrical energy city government uses comes from wind, with a target of 50%. That translates into savings of 3.5 million per year. The city already operates a fleet of hybrid cars and now is investing in an infrastructure to make driving this cars easy and practical. Globally, efficiency could cut the demands by a third by 2030.There are many ways to go and we can easily hit that renewable energy target:11.000 times our energy use is sent to our planet by the Sun,.12 times our energy usage comes from dams around the world,11 times our energy demands could be provided by biofuels made out of agricultural waste,3 times of our energy use could be extracted from the Earth hot activity,78 times of our electricity needs could be delivered through wind farms andefficiency could cut the demands by a third.So by 2030 our energy production could transform from one that is 87% from fossil fuels into this:26% solar13% wind13% geothermal5% hydro4% biofuels 61% of our current electricity needs could come out of renewable sources13% fossil fuels26% existing and new nuclear energy sourcesThere is even a viable and realistic plan that could use only Water, Wind and Solar energy to power up our activities, that means 100% energy from free renewable source!To make it short, renewable sources could easily provide the energy we use today and they will always be here. The sources are free, so the costs would be high only for the initial investments after that there would only be the costs for maintaining the infrastructure.We live our lives on this planet as if we are the last ones here when we should be living as if we are the first. In our ignorance and greed we cut down the trees that take in our CO2 and give us fresh air to breathe. We pollute the rivers and catch more fish then we actually need. This little dot in the Universe we call Earth is our playground, we are visitors here, we can enjoy our stay and leave this planet healthier than we've found it.To really change something the old must go, otherwise the new would only be a new form of the old, so all this needs is decision to start something new, to switch entirely to renewable sources for our energy needs. The possibility to run all our activities on green, low-cost, always renewable energy is already here, the technology exists and the sources have been here forever.Sebastian Writes For Find New York;