This satellite view of world at night is a beautiful image. In the winter, a lot of people decorate their houses, streets, and parks for holidays. Winter is my favorite season because of the light decorations. I feel like I’m in a magical space. However, using a lot of electricity doesn’t seem good for our future.
Under the green movement, people have started using sunlight, water, geothermal, or wind for generating electricity. Yet, the major source of electricity continues to be fossil fuels. Oil, coal, and natural gas are the top three. Only 13 percent of the sources are natural resources or nuclear, which means usage of electricity is increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Through our behavior we are creating and encouraging global warming.
Then, why is it so difficult to change? Many architects and students are trying to infuse Photovoltaic geothermal heat pumps
and wind mills into their designs. However, the initial cost to residents or customers are very high in real life. It is not easy to put these options into use in a practical, affordable manner.
I just hope that people realize the importance of electricity and how it is generated so that they will use electricity more efficiently. Also, I am hoping that those greener applications will become easier for people to implement and become more realistic options for the average person interested in reducing our impact on the environment.
Image: http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
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Your post makes good points. If our vision was extended a little further into the electromagnetic spectrum, we would see, in addition to beautiful night lights, something like a toaster oven of infrared (heat) radiation emitted from the wires connecting those lights.
ReplyDeleteThis can be greatly reduced by designing buildings that use less electricity like you say, and that generate much of that on their own rooftops, with buildings being modeled, in a sense, after trees.