Global Issues: Energy Crisis

Energy Crisis

The energy crisis is the concern that the world’s demands on the limited natural resources that are used to power industrial society are diminishing as the demand rises. These natural resources are in limited supply. While they do occur naturally, it can take hundreds of thousands of years to replenish the stores.

 

World energy consumption has been rising at a conerning rate since the mid 1970s. The reliance on oil presents a problem as this form of fuelruns out, the energy crisis worsens. Although rates of increase in energy use have been declining, the industrialization, agricultural development and rapidly growing populations of developing countries will need much more energy. However to bring the developing countries' energy use up to that of industrialized countries by the year 2025 would require an increase in the current global energy use by a factor of five. The planetary ecosystem could not stand this, especially if the increases were based on non-renewable fossil fuels. The current threats of global warming and acidification of the environment also tend to preclude even a doubling of energy use based on the present pattern of energy supply.
(More info)

▪ Energy Crises Causes 
There are many different causes of energy crisis like:


▪ Overconsumption:
Overconsumption is a situation where resource use has outpaced the sustainable capacity of the ecosystem. A prolonged pattern of overconsumption leads to environmental degradation and the eventual loss of resource bases.
(Read more)



▪ Overpopulation: Over the last half century the population of the world has exploded. At the time of writing there are seven billion people on the planet and this number is projected to grow in a short period of time.
(Read more)



▪ Poor infrastructure: Aging infrastructure of power generating equipment is yet another reason for energy shortage. Most of the energy producing firms keep on using outdated equipment that restricts the production of energy. It is the responsibility of utilities to keep on upgrading the infrastructure and set a high standard of performance.
(Read more)

▪ Energy poverty: More than 1.3 billion people – almost a quarter of humanity – have no electricity.This means they have no light in the evening, limited access to radio and modern communications, inadequate education and health facilities, and not enough power for their work and businesses.
Worldwide, more than 3 billion people depend on dirty solid fuels to meet their most basic energy need, cooking. At least 2.5 billion cook with biomass (i.e. wood, dung and agricultural residues), and over half a billion cook with coal.
(Read more)

▪ Poor governance: “The current energy crisis, though also a global problem, has become a critical socio-economic issue for Pakistan and is rooted in the country’s poor governance”.
(Read more)





▪ Unexplored renewable energy options: Renewable energy still remains unused is most of the countries. Most of the energy comes from non-renewable sources like coal. It still remains the top choice to produce energy
(Read more)

▪ Wastage of energy:  Without paying much attention, we use a lot of energy each day — from charging electronics to watching TV. In fact, in 2014, the average U.S. residential household consumed 10,982 kWh of electricity and spent around $2,200 annually on utility bills. Luckily, households can lower this amount up to 25 percent by being more proactive with energy conservation tips.
(Read more and check some tips to avoid the wastage of energy)


▪ Poor distribution system: Our electrical grid is being stretched to the brink. The U.S. is making itself less resilient against catastrophic failure from a major weather event or terror attack every day.
(Read more)


▪ Major accidents and natural calamities: In the spring of 2010, drought devastated China’s southwest, reducing the flow of major rivers and slashing hydroelectric power generation dramatically, upping China’s demand for energy inputs and putting pressure on global fuel prices.
In 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami raged a dual attack on Japan – destroying much of northern Japan’s energy infrastructure and devastating four nuclear plants and Fukushima – forcing Japan to up its imports of oil, coal and natural gas and causing several countries worldwide to cease nuclear development altogether.
Despite different causes and countries, the impacts both natural disasters have had on global energy are enormous.
(Read more)

▪ Wars and attacks: The Heritage team simulated the effects on world oil supplies, demand, and prices after a major terrorist attack on oil exports from Saudi Arabia and resulting disruption of oil shipping lanes between the Middle East and major Asian economies. Analyst...  measured the effects of these disruptions on the U.S. economy and found:
(Read more)

▪ A Crises of Energy

▪ Renewable Energy