After inviting disease naturally we become its host. Being a host for the guest 'disease' , we also search for cure. We continue to host and try to be away from the host. Creating problems and inviting problems, giving an imaginary problems and asking for solutions may be good management techniques. but not in real life. The saint poet Tiruvalluvar says we have to have precaution and if we don't life would go to ashes.

The continuing demand for energy is simply madness. We can't depend and entrust this entire human race to the question of energy. The way we lead our lives only requires energy. We build a 100 tower building and need an elevator... we close all the doors and cool our rooms artificially.

I can go on quoting how we are spoiling our lives and the earth's present and its future. One easy way that I can suggest for now is to voluntarily switch off our electrical systems according to our conscience's bidding. When the forced load shedding is there from the power distribution companies aren't we keeping quiet? It may be for an hour or up to 12 hours or even more.

Why not we self impose the 'power cut' on our own? Let it be for a second or a minute or an hour. Let's start.

Similarly stop using the motor bike or your car for a trip that takes a kilometer or a day or a week. Let us not burn the drop of oil that may help others moving in an emergency.

Solar Resources (Including Wind and Bio-fuel)

“Prices for renewable energy are decreasing constantly…Since installations producing renewable energy (in particular wind and photovoltaics) can be directly set up in those regions that need it, a widespread transmission infrastructure will be superfluous. What is more, wind and solar… do not need water for cooling and produce no emissions. The conclusion is inescapable: investments in renewable energy today are the only chance to reach a cost-effective energy supply for everyone everywhere.” —the late Hermann Scheer, member of German parliament, who spearheaded that nation’s feed-in tariff for renewable energy

Heat-Mining the Earth for Geothermal Energy

“[Enhanced Geothermal Systems are] one of the few renewable energy resources that can provide continuous base-load power with minimal visual and other environmental impacts. Geothermal systems have a small footprint and virtually no emissions, including carbon dioxide. Geothermal energy… requires no storage, and, thus, it complements other renewables…in a lower-carbon energy future. In the shorter term, having a significant portion of our base load supplied by geothermal sources would provide a buffer against the instabilities of gas price fluctuations and supply disruptions, as well as nuclear plant retirements.” —Massachusetts Institute of Technology interdisciplinary panel

Natural Gas for Transportation
“Oil monopolizes about 95 percent of the world’s transportation, and OPEC…controls nearly 80 percent of the world’s conventional oil reserves. We cannot change anything fundamental if we continue to permit oil and OPEC… to maintain their dominance…
The only realistic way to [provide competition for OPEC] is to enable vehicles, in short order and with relatively little investment in new infrastructure, to operate on alternatives to petroleum products… Cheap natural gas, which is key to ending our vehicles’ oil addiction affordably and promptly, can destroy oil’s monopoly and OPEC’s cartel.” –T. Boone Pickens, Texas oil and gas executive and investor, and R. James Woolsey, former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence

Energy Efficiency
“For the next few decades, energy efficiency is one of the lowest cost options for reducing U.S. carbon emissions. When efficiency improvements [are] both properly chosen and properly executed, the projected savings of energy and money [are] indeed achieved. Too often… savings [go] unrealized, due to… poor efficiency investment decisions and shoddy workmanship… Market failures include inertia, inconvenience, ignorance, lack of financing…Regardless of what the skeptics may think, there are indeed 20-dollar bills lying on the ground all around us. We only need the will—and the ways—to pick them up.”—U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu
Courtesy:

Marianne Lavelle