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WHY DO WE NEED ENERGY ?
We need energy to do work and produce warmth. This need has turned into a threat and has ultimately led to global discussion on global warming and clean, safe energy, European nuclear energy policy, disputes over energy in Germany and more.
If you think about work in the ordinary sense, and the ancient cave dwellers sense, before so many other senses came into play, your own bodily actions make it clear. When the work consists of bringing about movement, you need a change of energy from that stored up in chemistry in your body, to the kinetic, or that of moving things. To throw a spear, you need the potential stored in your muscle cells in chemical form, that you got from the food you eat, to convert to movement.
Conversion from one form to another makes your muscles contract. Acting about the elbow and shoulder, the muscles on one side draw your arm back and on the other straighten it with a jerk. The spear, gripped by your hand is accelerated rapidly to a high speed at which the release of your grip allows it to continue moving. When you want to cook, the work is done by heat. You need the potential stored up inside wood, for instance, to be transferred into heat, and begin to act on your food, bringing about a chemical change. Our bodies can only work at an optimal temperature, and we need warmth, to heat ourselves internally or to heat our environment, or to cool it down.
The electrical power we use every day, from a supplier like the electricity grid is used to accomplish work of many different kinds, making the blades in your blender or lawnmower move, or heating and cooling your food and home, or making filaments in your lights so hot that they release light, and to create this power, most often Carbon molecule combustion or burning processes are involved at the source, especially here in South Africa.
Every item you buy has been produced by using heat or movement in the process of being made, and it is good to be informed on what has gone into your shopping list, in terms of smoke and fire ! To run the engine of a car, combustion of carbon molecules occurs. Both electricity production and internal combustion engines release Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that is the problem which creates global warming, or rather sets it off, because its more complicated than mere Carbon emissions from our use of electricity, gas, diesel and so on.
Many kinds of burning around the world release Carbon, from the ashing of forests, to free fires on oil wells. The Carbon from the combustion, and most combustion involves carbon, gets into the atmosphere, where it acts like a blanket, preventing warmth from escaping the earth, so that we slowly heat up. So our need to have work done for us is altering the atmosphere, and leading to the earth heating up and that is known as Global Warming or Climate change. Pertinent are the new EU clean energy records and the controversy of coal and energy in South Africa when we are the fifth sunniest country in the world. One of the most potent greenhouse gases is methane and yet it also offers solutions to the environmental problems of minimizing industrial and domestic waste and treating sewerage, and producing renewable energy which anaerobic digesteranaerobic digesters, using methanogenesis to produce biogas. For home crafters and recyclers I describe how to make candles from tallow, but its a tricky business I gave up on because the energy input (cooking the tallow) may exceed the output (candlelight) and until I have a rocket stove or solar the energy comes from our grid and that comes from coal.
We need energy to do work and produce warmth. This need has turned into a threat and has ultimately led to global discussion on global warming and clean, safe energy, European nuclear energy policy, disputes over energy in Germany and more.
If you think about work in the ordinary sense, and the ancient cave dwellers sense, before so many other senses came into play, your own bodily actions make it clear. When the work consists of bringing about movement, you need a change of energy from that stored up in chemistry in your body, to the kinetic, or that of moving things. To throw a spear, you need the potential stored in your muscle cells in chemical form, that you got from the food you eat, to convert to movement.
Conversion from one form to another makes your muscles contract. Acting about the elbow and shoulder, the muscles on one side draw your arm back and on the other straighten it with a jerk. The spear, gripped by your hand is accelerated rapidly to a high speed at which the release of your grip allows it to continue moving. When you want to cook, the work is done by heat. You need the potential stored up inside wood, for instance, to be transferred into heat, and begin to act on your food, bringing about a chemical change. Our bodies can only work at an optimal temperature, and we need warmth, to heat ourselves internally or to heat our environment, or to cool it down.
The electrical power we use every day, from a supplier like the electricity grid is used to accomplish work of many different kinds, making the blades in your blender or lawnmower move, or heating and cooling your food and home, or making filaments in your lights so hot that they release light, and to create this power, most often Carbon molecule combustion or burning processes are involved at the source, especially here in South Africa.
Every item you buy has been produced by using heat or movement in the process of being made, and it is good to be informed on what has gone into your shopping list, in terms of smoke and fire ! To run the engine of a car, combustion of carbon molecules occurs. Both electricity production and internal combustion engines release Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that is the problem which creates global warming, or rather sets it off, because its more complicated than mere Carbon emissions from our use of electricity, gas, diesel and so on.
Many kinds of burning around the world release Carbon, from the ashing of forests, to free fires on oil wells. The Carbon from the combustion, and most combustion involves carbon, gets into the atmosphere, where it acts like a blanket, preventing warmth from escaping the earth, so that we slowly heat up. So our need to have work done for us is altering the atmosphere, and leading to the earth heating up and that is known as Global Warming or Climate change. Pertinent are the new EU clean energy records and the controversy of coal and energy in South Africa when we are the fifth sunniest country in the world. One of the most potent greenhouse gases is methane and yet it also offers solutions to the environmental problems of minimizing industrial and domestic waste and treating sewerage, and producing renewable energy which anaerobic digesteranaerobic digesters, using methanogenesis to produce biogas. For home crafters and recyclers I describe how to make candles from tallow, but its a tricky business I gave up on because the energy input (cooking the tallow) may exceed the output (candlelight) and until I have a rocket stove or solar the energy comes from our grid and that comes from coal.
As you can tell, I did not do much science after leaving school so I don't understand the full story by far, but I do understand that people can cut back on their own wastage of energy, on an individual level. People can also get organized and impact the larger groups like car users in your area, or legislation on carbon emissions for industry in your state, or lobby government to change policies and technologies, and thus cut back on the Carbon released into the atmosphere through combustion. But recently international protocols have finally taken this to the level of international action. We all need to understand this process of global warming to take care of the earth that supports us and be better global citizens and I invite contributions from scientists who can lay out the process and explain what needs to be done in layman's terms so that we can understand and help reduce Carbon emissions. I also invite everyone who wishes to contribute tips on saving energy, or has statistics on what nations, sectors of industry, and domestic uses are the biggest energy consumers, as well as which non combusting energy sources are the best alternatives and what progress is being made, and the sufficiency of the law with regard to the large technological shift we need to protect our life giving atmosphere from becoming a bringer of death and destruction, through our abuse.
Please share and air your knowledge of global warming, carbon emissions, political strategies, energy saving
The air (and in the macrosphere, the atmosphere) that envelops this planet has become damaged due to human abuse, and threatens to wreak awful revenge upon us. But shifting anthropomorphism and Elizabethan allusions aside, I would rather have a serious debate on how it all works, from chemistry to government involvement, and what we earth dwellers dependent on this air we breathe to protect us from being fried or drowned, can do as individuals and as groups to return her erstwhile gentle favours.
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