"Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the
chief interest of all technical endeavors...in order that the
creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind."
- Albert Einstein
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Renewable Energy
Biomass--A Green Source of Energy
Seeking Solutions to Unsustainable Energy Use
Taking Community Action
Addressing the Individual
Biogas Success
Tapping the African Sun --A Success Story
Energy is needed to produce the goods that we consume and to transport
us and our products from one place to another. Energy also is
the engine of industrial development. It is needed for transporting
farmers' produce to markets, children to school, and people to
their jobs. It is needed to run hospitals, to feed malnourished
and growing populations, to create industries that can compete
globally, and to provide households with lighting, heating, cooking
and refrigeration.
Traditionally, people in low-income countries mostly use non-commercial and non-conventional sources of energy, including human labour and animal power for agriculture, transportation, construction and industry, and in households, firewood and crop wastes for cooking and heating. As countries develop, and especially as people move from rural areas to cities, they require energy derived from different, more conventional sources. Motorized transport and agricultural machinery need oil and/or gas. Manufacturing industries require electricity generated from oil, coal, gas or hydro power stations. Households usually prefer kerosene or electricity to non-commercial sources of fuel such as dung or wood. Therefore, in assessing how to mobilize our communities to take action against environmental abuse, it is to the subject of conventional or "commercial" energy use that we now focus our attention.
Most energy use around the world is currently unsustainable. We now depend largely on limited, non-renewable sources of energy such as fossil fuels, which cause a great deal of pollution and are the biggest contributor to global warming and localized air pollution.
Energy is also produced using nuclear power in an increasing number of countries from India and China to France and Canada. Nuclear power will probably always play a role in meeting energy needs. However, the breakdown of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union shook confidence in nuclear power among a public already skeptical about its safety. The disposal of radioactive waste is a major problem associated with this form of energy.
Many forms of energy production involve some degree of risk to human health or the environment. Fossil-fuel burning has long been shown to cause both local pollution and "acid rain" in distant areas. It also adds significantly to the build-up of "greenhouse gases," caused by carbon emissions.
At present, the developed world consumes most of current energy production while the developing world struggles to meet its energy needs. It has been estimated that the developed world, which comprises 20 per cent of the planet's population, uses about 80 per cent of the energy produced globally. This unequal share of energy use among nations contributes greatly to environmental degradation.
Inefficient use of energy is a problem today because it devours
excessive amounts of our already scarce non-renewable resources.
This problem is especially prevalent in the developed countries
of the world where a good supply of relatively cheap energy has
enabled people to become used to wasteful and unsustainable patterns
of consumption. To prevent this pattern from being adopted in
the South, important lessons must be learned from developed countries.
Solar, wind, geothermal and hydro power are all examples of how we can harness the renewable energy from natural forces. Solar energy can be used for heating or to convert sunlight directly into electricity with photovoltaic technology. Photovoltaics are now commonly used everywhere from producing electricity in remote areas that lack power lines to powering space satellites. Another form of solar energy, called solar thermal, produces heat and electricity by concentrating sunlight on a container of fluid. The heated fluid runs through pipes that are submerged in water, which then create steam to power an electric turbine. Improvements in solar technology over the past 15 years have greatly reduced its cost, making it competitive with conventional energy sources in many circumstances.
Geothermal energy uses natural steam from the Earth to produce electricity. More than 250 geothermal plants are in operation worldwide with a total and planned capacity of 13,000 megawatts. These natural steam resources provide the U.S. state of California-which on its own consumes more energy than most countries-with almost seven per cent of its electricity needs. Also in California, which has the highest per capita use of alternative energy in the world, wind generates nearly 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, enough to meet the needs of a city the size of San Francisco. Every year, energy generated from wind turbines in California keeps 11 million pounds of air pollutants and 1.8 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses from passing into the atmosphere.
Although less polluting than fossil fuels and safer than nuclear
power, methods of harnessing renewable energy often have problems
of their own. Many take up a lot of space relative to the amount
of energy produced. As well, the technology involved is often
expensive and the amount of money available for research in this
area is limited. While large-scale production of renewable energy
is bound to grow in the future, it is not likely to replace other
energy technologies for a long time.
Biomass-A Green Source of Energy
Biomass, such as wood, animal wastes and other organic matter, is perhaps the oldest source of energy in the world. Since primordial times, humans have used the energy stored in plants as a source of food, heat and light. These plants take energy from the sun and store it in chemical compounds through a process known as photosynthesis.
Unlike commercial sources of energy that are the main concern for most environmentalists, the use of biomass on a small scale does very little harm to the Earth. However, on a large scale, using it unsustainably can destroy entire ecosystems. Today, people rely more on biomass for energy than on all hydroelectric dams and nuclear fuel plants in the world combined. According to the World Resources Institute, developing countries account for 80 per cent of the world's population, but consume about 26 per cent of all the commercial energy sources and 85 per cent of all traditional biomass fuels.
Each year, according to UNEP, people clear and burn 22,000 square kilometres of trees to cook food and heat their homes. Much of the wood is made into charcoal, because charcoal weighs little, burns hot and slowly and is easily broken up into manageable, burnable pieces. This process, however, wastes 70 per cent of the energy of the wood. According to UNEP estimates, if this waste continues, nearly three billion people will be short of the fuel they need by the year 2000.
There is, however, an option. When used wisely and sustainably, both at home and at the community level, biomass offers a solution to environmental degradation. Communities can use wood more efficiently, and so reduce their impact on their environment, by using better designed stoves, letting their wood dry and cutting it into smaller pieces. Efficient wood stoves now being used increasingly throughout Asia and Africa can reduce charcoal use by up to 50 per cent. The improvements in efficiency result from controlling the air flow to the fuel, insulating the sides of the stove to minimize waste heat and using small pieces of dry wood or charcoal. Also, efforts are being made to produce charcoal more efficiently, such as through the use of kilns rather than the traditional earth clamp methods.
Such practices put the use of biomass as a source of energy on the path to sustainability rather than contributing to environmental degradation. Other uses of biomass, such as tapping the energy potential of wastes and residues, likewise offer sustainable options. Agricultural activities, for example, produce both marketable food crops and large quantities of stalks, cobs, straws and stems that could be used for energy, though they are most effective as a potent fertilizer. By-products from the timber industry, such as the tops and limbs of trees, sawdust and other wood scraps, can also be used.
There are several technologies for converting biomass into energy. The primary methods involve releasing the energy through fire, such as with an industrial boiler; converting it through heat, such as producing methane from solid wood; converting it through bacteria or yeast to break down the biomass, such as making ethanol from corn; and altering the chemical makeup of a biomass feedstock to make it a more efficient energy product, such as turning vegetable oils into "biodiesel," a clean-burning biofuel that can be used in diesel engines.
The use of biomass as an energy source offers many advantages
for the environment compared to deriving energy from non-renewable
fossil fuels. Energy taken from biomass generally adds far less
carbon to the atmosphere, thus reducing the contribution to climate
change. If new plant material is grown to replace that taken to
produce the energy, the little carbon that is released will be
reabsorbed, thereby completing a cycle.
Seeking Solutions to Unsustainable Energy Use
With the recent dramatic increases in energy prices, people in industrial countries have become more concerned about efficient energy use. In response, many techniques for conserving energy have developed over the past few years. At the same time, the world is shifting toward lessenergy-intensive goods and services and encouraging the use of clean fuels. These developments are an improvement in the developed world, where the consumption of energy is inordinately high.
Improving energy efficiency not only reduces the use of energy resources, and thus slows down their depletion, but also decreases negative environmental and health impacts such as the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Improving efficiency requires a change in peoples' habits, unwavering commitment from governments, and cooperation from industry and commerce to adopt new environmentally-clean technologies. It also requires industrialized nations to make these technologies easily accessible to developing countries.
Communities are faced with a tremendous challenge: to reduce dependency
on fossil fuels, improve energy efficiency and promote energy
conservation through education and public awareness campaigns.
Accomplishing all this takes time, and requires that people everywhere
change their
lifestyles, consumption and production patterns and attitudes.
It furthermore requires individuals, community organizations,
governments and businesses in both industrialized and developing
countries to educate themselves on energy issues and make a commitment
to work together to achieve more efficient and environment-friendly
energy use.
Community organizations can make a big difference when it comes
to reducing energy consumption. Following are a set of suggestions
to inspire your organization to find solutions that would be appropriate
for your community:
Actions at the individual level are important and should be encouraged
by your community organization. Start by making sure that members
of your group are concerned about energy efficiency in their own
homes and workplaces. Following are some key areas in which an
individual can take action in the field of energy efficiency.
Some of the tips may be more useful in developed countries, while
others are more aptly suited for developing countries. However,
since most commercial energy use in both the North and the South
is derived from similar sources, and since energy use is an issue
that equally impacts all regions of the world, what works in one
part of the world often can be adapted to the other.
In the perennial search for new and affordable energy sources, many countries in the developing world have discovered an alternative to conventional electricity by converting organic material into energy through a process of fermentation. The resulting energy source is called biogas, and is especially useful in agrarian societies with an abundance of livestock or other animals. However, biogas can have a drawback when it takes away the resource that often is needed for valuable fertilizer.
To produce biogas, manure from village cattle and other sources is put into a biogas digester, which produces a 60:40 mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. This is used to cook, produce electricity for lighting and pump drinking water. The residue can be used as fertilizer, though it is not as effective as the original manure.
Family-sized biogas digesters are now relatively common in countries such as China and India. In China, there are an estimated 4.6 million biogas digesters currently being used. Though community biogas digesters are more economical than family-sized digesters, the latter is more common because of the difficulty of organizing an equitable distribution of costs and benefits among villagers.
One community that was successful in implementing a large scale biogas digester was Pura, in Southern India. In 1991, Pura had 87 households and a cattle population of 248. About half the households received electricity from an unreliable grid system.
When the Pura biogas project was first launched, it did not prove reliable either. It was only after much support and hard work, and the addition of a dual-fuel engine, that the digester began to effectively serve as a source of energy for the community. Biogas from the digester now passes through a condensation trap and is mixed with diesel fuel to operate the generator. The electricity provides fluorescent lighting and runs a pump that brings water 50 metres up to an overhead tank. The water then flows by gravity to nine street taps and 29 household taps.
The biogas system has many advantages. It is clean, self-reliant,
renewable and inexpensive. It also provides better and more accessible
drinking water, and better and more reliable light than most grid
systems in the developing world. The Indian government is now
offering to help communities finance biogas plants and is setting
yearly targets for the installation of new community biogas plants.
Tapping the African Sun
A Success Story
When J. Sonke of Malawi gets a bright idea, it shines like the sun. One of these ideas was to use his country's natural resources to their fullest potential, to reduce his country's dependence on fuel wood, imported fuels and imports in general. To Sonke, the natural resources he intended to harness are the Earth, water, sun and people.
Looking up for inspiration, Mr. Sonke saw the power potential of the sun, and began to apply it to solar water heating. He saw that solar energy could save money and help the environment, so he learned everything he could about this valuable technology. In 1984, he started a company to produce solar-powered water heaters. A year after his company started doing business the Malawi Government became its biggest customer. Ten years later, more than 1,000 water heaters had been produced and installed in hospitals, schools, health centers, missions and private homes all over Malawi and other neighbouring African countries.
This was not a novel idea in Malawi, where the use of solar energy goes back to the 1950s. But, faced with competition from easily available firewood and high import costs to land-locked Malawi, there were few sales of the inefficient imported solar water heaters. Sonke saw a need for a simple, locally-made heater suited to local water, climate and raw materials.
Sonke's company started production in 1984 with just five employees, initially supplying mostly rural mission stations. Ten years later, the manufacturing process for solar water heaters was well established and the company now reckons to offer the widest range of specialized solar water heaters in the world. Capacities range from 75 litres to more than 5,000 litres, and models have been adapted for different roof types, water supplies and architectural requirements.
The company is expanding. Its workforce now numbers more than
100, and has set up a daughter company. Sonke is now looking for
other ways to harness the Earth in sustainable ways to provide
the energy and resources his country needs to develop. He has
proven that his greatest natural resources are his intellect and
motivation.
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