Threats of using renewable energies
The risks of using renewable energies
Bela Rabi
Miklós Zrínyi National Defense University Hungary
1
“…economy
is
already
late,
when the wealth is running out” Seneca
The use of fossil fuels, witch supply the needs of the modern humanity, pollute our atmosphere with more and more CO2, witch speeds up the greenhouse effect, so heats the Earth and generates global changes in our climate. The consequences of this is not revealed, we’ve got a few screenplays about our future, from the rising of the level of oceans to a new ice age. If the average temperature continuously rises, then the icecaps melts and the level of oceans rise. As 60% of humanity lives on the coast or near the coast of the oceans, this will cause serious problems. The other conception says that the enormous mass of freshwater, from the melt of ice, will attenuate the salt water of Gulf Stream and can stop it, witch can cause a new ice age in Europe. Anyway that is sure that we started an undoable process and we must aware of its consequences and if possible we must try to forestall these. One possible way for that is lowering our CO2 emission, for example with using renewable energies. These energies are the wind-, solar-, hydro energy and the biomass. Using of these energies we can lessen our greenhouse gas emission. But of course it has got two sides, like everything. Using renewable energies holds plenty of dangers in it. I try to aim attention on these dangers in my study. For the use of water energy we must built dams and aquifers, witch can influence an other country’s water supply, witch easily can cause conflicts. The use of biomass can be also dangerous. First of all the mass of green stock can displace the food crops and can cause more starvation in Africa and the cutting and parching of the Brazilian rainforest for growing green stock will have more environmental consequences. These are only two of the problems, dangers and challenges I would like to explain in my study.
2
The theory of climate change
The climate of Earth is the most complex process on our planet, and we still don’t know every element of it. Anyway that is sure that without the greenhouse effect there wouldn’t be any life on Earth. The atmosphere catches the heat of sun and keeps our planet warm. 1. figure Greenhouse effect
The atmosphere of Earth has changed continuously the past 4 billion years. The temperature of the atmosphere and the earth has changed also. The reason for the changes are, the distance of Earth and the sun, the angular offset of the planet the evolution of vegetation.
2. figure Changes of temperature
3
As noticeable on the figure, there have been drastic changes in the climate, but in the last ten thousand years the temperature was quite stable. Scientists have already proved that the last ice age is not over yet, so the rising of temperature is normal, but the emissions of more and more contaminant not just accelerates the rising of temperature but is able to spoil the natural process. The pollution of the atmosphere may comes from natural resources, like volcanoes, marshes, etc, and the other form is the human pollution, majority greenhouse gases. These are the carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and the nitrous oxide (NOx).
The carbon dioxide is naturally present in the atmosphere and doesn’t threat the human health directly, but it’s the main causing of greenhouse affect, so the global warming. The quantity of carbon dioxide has natural regulators, like the plants, which use it for their life process – this is the photosynthesis, the oceans, which can also set CO2 if the temperature of the surface is not too high. If the water is too warm, then instead of setting CO2 it gives off it. This process will be more usual in the future, as the temperature of oceans rises. The anthropogenic emission of CO2 rises from the industrial revolution:
4
Nowadays it’s already clear that there’s tight coherence between the level of CO2 in the atmosphere and the temperature of the atmosphere.
The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response. First of all we have to cut down our greenhouse gas emission. This is available by bating our energy use and using renewable energies. These energies are constantly available contrary to fossil fuels and reproducible. These are the solar-, wind-, geothermal energy and biomass.
5
The effects of climate change on economy
Nicholas Stern British economist writes in his study, that the price of stabilizing of climate change is high, but default would be very dangerous and much more expensive. If no action is taken to reduce emissions, the concentration of greenhouse gases could reach double its pre-industrial level as early as 2035, virtually committing us to a global average temperature rise of over 2°C. In longer term there would be more than 50% chance that the temperature rise would exceed 5°C. This rise would be very dangerous indeed, because it’s equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the last ice age to today. Even at more moderate levels of warming, all the evidence show the climate change will have serious impacts on world output, on human life and on the environment. All counties will be affected. The most vulnerable – the poorest countries – will suffer earliest and most, even though they have contributed least to the causes of climate change. It is no longer possible to prevent the climate change that will take place over the next two or three decades, but it’s still possible to protect our societies and economies from its impacts. As scientists says the risks of the worst impact of climate change can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas level in the atmosphere can be stabilized between 450 and 550ppm CO2 equivalent. The current level is 430ppm CO2 equivalent and it’s rising at more than 2ppm each year. Stabilization in this range would require emissions to be at least 25% current levels by 2050, and perhaps much more. Ultimately, stabilization requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels. Central estimates of the annual costs of this are around 1% of global GDP, if we start to take actions now.
“Action on climate change is required in across all countries, and it need not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries.” Nicholas Stern
The costs of taking actions are not evenly distributed across sectors or around the world. Even if the rich world takes on responsibility for absolute cuts in emissions of 60-80% by 2050, developing countries must take significant action too, and these countries should not be required to bear the full costs of this action alone, the rich world must support them. If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 6
5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of global GDP or more. The world does not need to choose between averting climate change and promoting development. Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that doesn’t cap the aspirations for growth of rich or developing countries.
Renewable energies
We can call an energy source renewable if in the course of utilization the source doesn’t reduce and further on we can produce energy from it. For example the sun will shine later also, but the fuels of cars aren’t reproducable, we will run out of oil. Renewable energies are solar energy, wind energy, energy from biomass, hydro energy and geothermal energy. Wind energy: utilization of energy, which can be get by wind turbines in constantly windy areas. Humanity have been using wind energy from the ancient ages, sail boats or windmills. At the modern ages we can already produce electricity with the help of wind turbines. Europe leads the world in the technology and production of wind power, with 74% of worldwide generating capacity and 90% of the market for generating equipment. Germany, Spain and Denmark are the leading producers. The first wind turbine was located in 2001, 59 km from Budapest. It produces 1 250 000 kWh electricity each year, which is enough for 750 families.
7
Of course there are a few objection against wind turbines. To begin with it’s a very expensive technology, it brings back its price only by years. The older types were very noisy.
Geothermal energy: our earth's interior - like the sun - provides heat energy from nature. This heat - geothermal energy - yields warmth and power that we can use without polluting the environment. The temperature of Earth rises 30°C by 1 km from the surface, but for example in Hungary in 2 km deep the temperature is already 100°C. This heat is geothermal energy from rocks. Geothermal power works continually, day and night, providing baseload power. From an economic view, geothermal energy is extremely price competitive in some areas. The heated groundwater can be used for direct heating of homes and greenhouses, for vegetable drying, and for a number of other uses. These are known as direct uses of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is also used for electricity production. The disadvantage of geothermal energy is, that high salt material of the water. Solar energy: is the flow of energy from the sun. The primary forms of solar energy are heat and light. The Earth receives 173 ×1012 kW of solar radiation, which is thousand fold more energy than we need. Each year we could receive as much energy from the sun as we can get from the burning of 60 billion tons of crude oil. Unfortunately there are some problems with the collection of solar energy. First is the periodicity, so just daytime and just in clean weather. The second problem is the very high price of the collectors, boilers and other equipments. Biomass: refers to living and recently dead biological material, which can be used as fuel or for industrial production. Biomass is a collective term for all plant and animal material. A number of different forms of biomass can be burned or digested to produce energy. Biomass is the most important renewable energy of Earth. Till the 17th century eventually biomass was the only energy supply of mankind. Sources of biomass: − Secondary products of agricultural crops (straw, corn-stalk, corn-cob, etc.) − Pants produced for energy supply (rape, sugar beet, different trees) − Animal produced biomass
8
− Secondary products of cutting trees (sliver, sawdust, etc.) Water energy: usually called hydro power, supplied from rivers and oceans, a renewable and reliable energy. Mankind uses the energy of water from the very beginning of civilization. In China, Mesopotamia, Egypt they used water wheels for irrigation and for drink water. At time of the Roman Empire people already used water mills. The first power station was built in 1896 on the Niagara Falls, engineered by Nicola Tesla. Hydro power is created by capturing energy from moving water. Usually, hydro power works by capturing the potential energy of dammed water, which drives a water turbine and generator as it is piped down a hill at high pressure.
The effects of renewable energies on economy and security
Renewable energies assist to the sustainable development, helps the security of supply, they don’t raise the concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere. Usually they are domestic energies, so they lessen dependence from other countries. These are the usual ideas about renewable energies. As usual the question is much more complex. Let’s think about biofuels first. Biofuels are carbon neutral, because when we burn them we emit as much CO2 as the plants have set before, so contrary to fossil fuels we don’t raise the CO2 concentration is the atmosphere. Furthermore, as analysts say, they develop agriculture, create new jobs, because it’s a marketable product in the European and American market. Additionally plants used for biofuels are produced inland, so they lessen dependence from the crude oil export countries, like Russia or the Middle-East countries. If we contemplate only these attributes of biofuels, then they are the rescuer of humanity. They don’t pollute environment, don’t unleash wars and also develop agriculture and economy. That’s why biofuels became so popular in the scope of European and American politicians. In the European Union was decided to raise the rate of biofulels 5,75% by 2010 and 10% by 2020. The United States appropriated 27% of the whole fuel market by 2017. They subsidize the 9
produce of these plants, so new large-scale investors appeared in the market and investments grew 800% in the last three years. But as calculations writes to reach the 10% rate in Europe 70% of the cultivatable lands are needed and in the United States all the produced corn and soy should use for biofuels. Because of that the price of food would raise extremely, the states should import food and also jobs would cease because for the production of these plants much less worker are needed. That’s why the developed countries want to import biomass for biofuels from developing countries. With that they also help the economy of these countries. The top biofuel producer in the world is Brazil, where soy and sugarcane are produced and Indonesia, where the top product is palm-oil. Of course these countries try to supply the new and enormous needs, but they use very environment destructive processes. As a NASA study writes the price of soy in the world market is directly proportional to the gassing of rain forests. In Brazil the gassing of rain forests have reached the terrible number of 325 thousand km2 a year. The same situation evolves in Indonesia and if they don’t lessen gassing there won’t be any trees by 2022. This would cause ecological catastrophe and the island would be uninhabitable because of the disappearing of soil, the change of climate, etc. so the biofuel is absolutely not environment spare. The plants planted instead of rain forest can set much less CO2, than the rain forest could before, so the real emission of biofuels is tenfold of fossil fuels. Furthermore to products these plants much less worker are needed, than for the food crops, so unemployment would raise in these areas. The price of food is a great problem also. To product 100-liter biofuel we need as much corn as the energy need of a normal man for a year. Additionally the production of corn need 33% more fossil energy than the biofuel energy we can retrieve from it. In the beginning of 2007 there was a so called “tortilla rebellion” in Mexico, because the price of corn suddenly doubled, on the score of the American buying up of corn in the Middle-American country. The price of corn endanger directly the life of 2,7 billion men. While 10% of sugar production is used for biofuel the price of sugar in the world market also doubled. So the uncontrolled production of biofuels has dangerous security, economical and social risks. The other renewable energy is water. The material welfare of the world's population depends on maintaining access to increasingly scarce water and energy resources. Irresponsible use of the water has several problems. The water is absolute necessity to our living, we water, wash and cook with it and we can use it for creating of electric and kinetic energy.
10
Today the water is almost at service for us in unlimited volume, but the stores can run out. Overuse and pollution of the water generate serious problems all over the world. Building of a hydroelectric power station in a country affects on the water supply of an other country, which located lower flow of the river. These situations press the safety of a country significantly, because of its dependence. For example the Atatürk dike system dams the water both of Eufrates and Tiger river which fact has an affect on water supply of Syria and Iraq. This fact enhances conflicts on these low security level territories. Water usage has an affect on a country’s agricultural and economic results. SaudiArabia has a precedent for the most irrational water use. 75% of the water store is subsurface water, which is incapable of the renewal. Utilize of the water store resulted in prolific lands in desert. The country became self-sufficient even grain-exporter, but for these days the water store decreased to point of no return. Building of reservoirs can causes exaggerated changes in the rivers’ runoff. For the sake of the Assuan Dam 10% of Nile’s runoff gets to the sea. In highly polluted water 20 commercial genuses consumed the last 30 years, accordingly the fishing decreased notably. Last decade Yellow river didn’t reach the sea on the average three month in a year. The river’s runoff from bad to worse and it increasingly polluted. Resident population is obliged to use to water nevertheless that the level of heavy metal is above of safe load. For the sake of water Amu-Darja and Sir-Darja rivers don’t get to the Lake Amur since 1970’ years therefore it became arid. Additionally the lakebed is very polluted with radioactive sand and the wind blows the sand to the cropland. At the same time water use of humanity more and more increase and more and more area is involved but this fact is pregnant with consequences. In South-East Asia much of rivers are so much contaminated so that they unsuitable for consumption even after purification accordingly population use groundwater, however these artesian wells usually include arsenic. On this fact there was 200 thousands arsenic poisoning in West-Bengalia and probably half of the Bangladesh’s population (62 million person) is concerned. The water is stern problem for Mexico City too. Since they have not enough above ground water they have to pump subsurface water to supply citizens’ necessity. Because of this the city started to sink, by an extraordinary 2 cm per month. In 1994, the year of the Mexican economy slump, the state asked for a 2,8 billion m3 water from the Rio Grande from the United States and not financial help. For the sake of the American farmers the USA refused the Mexican demand. A possible conflict area is the Nile – so Egypt an Ethiopia. 86% 11
of the stock of water is from Ethiopia and Egypt’s dependence from the Nile is 97%. Egypt has already threatened several times with war if Ethiopia tries to raise its water use. We can understand from these examples that the use of water has a number of security risks. Supposedly the lessen of water and fossil fuels will be biggest problems of mankind in the near future.
Conclusions As we could understand in the previous climate change is the top challenge of mankind in the future. And man is one of the cause of climate change. The problem is so serious already, that without any action terrible economical, environmental, social and security problems are bound to happen. For the prevention of these we must lessen our CO2 emission, which can be done by using much less fossil fuels. The way things are going the best for this are renewable energies. But these energies also have security risks. The solution is somewhere halfway. We should lessen the us of fossil fuels, but we must control the use of biofuels and reserve our water supply for the next generations. States should subsidize the more expensive renewable energies, like solar energy, wind energy and geothermic energy, which have much less risks than biofuels or hydro energy.
12
Bibliography •
Environmental security and global security, edited by Max G. Manwaring, Lexington Books, 2002.
•
Dr. Rakoncai János, Globális környezeti problémák, Lazi Könyvkiadó, Szeged, 2003.
•
Dr. Büki Gergely A biomassza energetikai hasznosítása, Bioenergia, 2007. II.évf. 4.szám,
•
Monoki Ákos: Biomassza energia, in: http://www.nyf.hu/others/html/kornyezettud/megujulo/Biomassza/Biomassza.html
•
Stern Review final report: http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_ review_report.cfm
•
Pálvölgyi Tamás: Az új évezred környezeti kihívása: az éghajlatváltozás, L’Hartmann Kiadó, 2000.
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http://mek.oszk.hu/01100/01154/b1
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http://kation.elte.hu/tantov97/12/fogalma2.htm
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www.npp.hu
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http://jp1.estis.net/sites/esteasthu/default.asp?site=esteasthu&page_id=4C3BF33818A3-438E-9978-C46A16361E89
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hungary.indymedia.org
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gristmill.grist.org
•
Környezetvédelmi Lexikon
•
http://www.winfo.hu/
•
http://regi.okoszolgalat.hu/napocska.php
•
www.kekenergia.hu
•
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/
•
http://envirovaluation.org/
•
http://www.biofuelreview.com/
•
http://www.hi-energy.org.uk/hydroenergy.html
•
http://www.eea.europa.eu/
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http://www.nef.org.uk/greenenergy/solar.htm
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http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.html
13
Bela Rabi
Miklós Zrínyi National Defense University Hungary
1
“…economy
is
already
late,
when the wealth is running out” Seneca
The use of fossil fuels, witch supply the needs of the modern humanity, pollute our atmosphere with more and more CO2, witch speeds up the greenhouse effect, so heats the Earth and generates global changes in our climate. The consequences of this is not revealed, we’ve got a few screenplays about our future, from the rising of the level of oceans to a new ice age. If the average temperature continuously rises, then the icecaps melts and the level of oceans rise. As 60% of humanity lives on the coast or near the coast of the oceans, this will cause serious problems. The other conception says that the enormous mass of freshwater, from the melt of ice, will attenuate the salt water of Gulf Stream and can stop it, witch can cause a new ice age in Europe. Anyway that is sure that we started an undoable process and we must aware of its consequences and if possible we must try to forestall these. One possible way for that is lowering our CO2 emission, for example with using renewable energies. These energies are the wind-, solar-, hydro energy and the biomass. Using of these energies we can lessen our greenhouse gas emission. But of course it has got two sides, like everything. Using renewable energies holds plenty of dangers in it. I try to aim attention on these dangers in my study. For the use of water energy we must built dams and aquifers, witch can influence an other country’s water supply, witch easily can cause conflicts. The use of biomass can be also dangerous. First of all the mass of green stock can displace the food crops and can cause more starvation in Africa and the cutting and parching of the Brazilian rainforest for growing green stock will have more environmental consequences. These are only two of the problems, dangers and challenges I would like to explain in my study.
2
The theory of climate change
The climate of Earth is the most complex process on our planet, and we still don’t know every element of it. Anyway that is sure that without the greenhouse effect there wouldn’t be any life on Earth. The atmosphere catches the heat of sun and keeps our planet warm. 1. figure Greenhouse effect
The atmosphere of Earth has changed continuously the past 4 billion years. The temperature of the atmosphere and the earth has changed also. The reason for the changes are, the distance of Earth and the sun, the angular offset of the planet the evolution of vegetation.
2. figure Changes of temperature
3
As noticeable on the figure, there have been drastic changes in the climate, but in the last ten thousand years the temperature was quite stable. Scientists have already proved that the last ice age is not over yet, so the rising of temperature is normal, but the emissions of more and more contaminant not just accelerates the rising of temperature but is able to spoil the natural process. The pollution of the atmosphere may comes from natural resources, like volcanoes, marshes, etc, and the other form is the human pollution, majority greenhouse gases. These are the carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and the nitrous oxide (NOx).
The carbon dioxide is naturally present in the atmosphere and doesn’t threat the human health directly, but it’s the main causing of greenhouse affect, so the global warming. The quantity of carbon dioxide has natural regulators, like the plants, which use it for their life process – this is the photosynthesis, the oceans, which can also set CO2 if the temperature of the surface is not too high. If the water is too warm, then instead of setting CO2 it gives off it. This process will be more usual in the future, as the temperature of oceans rises. The anthropogenic emission of CO2 rises from the industrial revolution:
4
Nowadays it’s already clear that there’s tight coherence between the level of CO2 in the atmosphere and the temperature of the atmosphere.
The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response. First of all we have to cut down our greenhouse gas emission. This is available by bating our energy use and using renewable energies. These energies are constantly available contrary to fossil fuels and reproducible. These are the solar-, wind-, geothermal energy and biomass.
5
The effects of climate change on economy
Nicholas Stern British economist writes in his study, that the price of stabilizing of climate change is high, but default would be very dangerous and much more expensive. If no action is taken to reduce emissions, the concentration of greenhouse gases could reach double its pre-industrial level as early as 2035, virtually committing us to a global average temperature rise of over 2°C. In longer term there would be more than 50% chance that the temperature rise would exceed 5°C. This rise would be very dangerous indeed, because it’s equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the last ice age to today. Even at more moderate levels of warming, all the evidence show the climate change will have serious impacts on world output, on human life and on the environment. All counties will be affected. The most vulnerable – the poorest countries – will suffer earliest and most, even though they have contributed least to the causes of climate change. It is no longer possible to prevent the climate change that will take place over the next two or three decades, but it’s still possible to protect our societies and economies from its impacts. As scientists says the risks of the worst impact of climate change can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas level in the atmosphere can be stabilized between 450 and 550ppm CO2 equivalent. The current level is 430ppm CO2 equivalent and it’s rising at more than 2ppm each year. Stabilization in this range would require emissions to be at least 25% current levels by 2050, and perhaps much more. Ultimately, stabilization requires that annual emissions be brought down to more than 80% below current levels. Central estimates of the annual costs of this are around 1% of global GDP, if we start to take actions now.
“Action on climate change is required in across all countries, and it need not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries.” Nicholas Stern
The costs of taking actions are not evenly distributed across sectors or around the world. Even if the rich world takes on responsibility for absolute cuts in emissions of 60-80% by 2050, developing countries must take significant action too, and these countries should not be required to bear the full costs of this action alone, the rich world must support them. If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 6
5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of global GDP or more. The world does not need to choose between averting climate change and promoting development. Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that doesn’t cap the aspirations for growth of rich or developing countries.
Renewable energies
We can call an energy source renewable if in the course of utilization the source doesn’t reduce and further on we can produce energy from it. For example the sun will shine later also, but the fuels of cars aren’t reproducable, we will run out of oil. Renewable energies are solar energy, wind energy, energy from biomass, hydro energy and geothermal energy. Wind energy: utilization of energy, which can be get by wind turbines in constantly windy areas. Humanity have been using wind energy from the ancient ages, sail boats or windmills. At the modern ages we can already produce electricity with the help of wind turbines. Europe leads the world in the technology and production of wind power, with 74% of worldwide generating capacity and 90% of the market for generating equipment. Germany, Spain and Denmark are the leading producers. The first wind turbine was located in 2001, 59 km from Budapest. It produces 1 250 000 kWh electricity each year, which is enough for 750 families.
7
Of course there are a few objection against wind turbines. To begin with it’s a very expensive technology, it brings back its price only by years. The older types were very noisy.
Geothermal energy: our earth's interior - like the sun - provides heat energy from nature. This heat - geothermal energy - yields warmth and power that we can use without polluting the environment. The temperature of Earth rises 30°C by 1 km from the surface, but for example in Hungary in 2 km deep the temperature is already 100°C. This heat is geothermal energy from rocks. Geothermal power works continually, day and night, providing baseload power. From an economic view, geothermal energy is extremely price competitive in some areas. The heated groundwater can be used for direct heating of homes and greenhouses, for vegetable drying, and for a number of other uses. These are known as direct uses of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is also used for electricity production. The disadvantage of geothermal energy is, that high salt material of the water. Solar energy: is the flow of energy from the sun. The primary forms of solar energy are heat and light. The Earth receives 173 ×1012 kW of solar radiation, which is thousand fold more energy than we need. Each year we could receive as much energy from the sun as we can get from the burning of 60 billion tons of crude oil. Unfortunately there are some problems with the collection of solar energy. First is the periodicity, so just daytime and just in clean weather. The second problem is the very high price of the collectors, boilers and other equipments. Biomass: refers to living and recently dead biological material, which can be used as fuel or for industrial production. Biomass is a collective term for all plant and animal material. A number of different forms of biomass can be burned or digested to produce energy. Biomass is the most important renewable energy of Earth. Till the 17th century eventually biomass was the only energy supply of mankind. Sources of biomass: − Secondary products of agricultural crops (straw, corn-stalk, corn-cob, etc.) − Pants produced for energy supply (rape, sugar beet, different trees) − Animal produced biomass
8
− Secondary products of cutting trees (sliver, sawdust, etc.) Water energy: usually called hydro power, supplied from rivers and oceans, a renewable and reliable energy. Mankind uses the energy of water from the very beginning of civilization. In China, Mesopotamia, Egypt they used water wheels for irrigation and for drink water. At time of the Roman Empire people already used water mills. The first power station was built in 1896 on the Niagara Falls, engineered by Nicola Tesla. Hydro power is created by capturing energy from moving water. Usually, hydro power works by capturing the potential energy of dammed water, which drives a water turbine and generator as it is piped down a hill at high pressure.
The effects of renewable energies on economy and security
Renewable energies assist to the sustainable development, helps the security of supply, they don’t raise the concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere. Usually they are domestic energies, so they lessen dependence from other countries. These are the usual ideas about renewable energies. As usual the question is much more complex. Let’s think about biofuels first. Biofuels are carbon neutral, because when we burn them we emit as much CO2 as the plants have set before, so contrary to fossil fuels we don’t raise the CO2 concentration is the atmosphere. Furthermore, as analysts say, they develop agriculture, create new jobs, because it’s a marketable product in the European and American market. Additionally plants used for biofuels are produced inland, so they lessen dependence from the crude oil export countries, like Russia or the Middle-East countries. If we contemplate only these attributes of biofuels, then they are the rescuer of humanity. They don’t pollute environment, don’t unleash wars and also develop agriculture and economy. That’s why biofuels became so popular in the scope of European and American politicians. In the European Union was decided to raise the rate of biofulels 5,75% by 2010 and 10% by 2020. The United States appropriated 27% of the whole fuel market by 2017. They subsidize the 9
produce of these plants, so new large-scale investors appeared in the market and investments grew 800% in the last three years. But as calculations writes to reach the 10% rate in Europe 70% of the cultivatable lands are needed and in the United States all the produced corn and soy should use for biofuels. Because of that the price of food would raise extremely, the states should import food and also jobs would cease because for the production of these plants much less worker are needed. That’s why the developed countries want to import biomass for biofuels from developing countries. With that they also help the economy of these countries. The top biofuel producer in the world is Brazil, where soy and sugarcane are produced and Indonesia, where the top product is palm-oil. Of course these countries try to supply the new and enormous needs, but they use very environment destructive processes. As a NASA study writes the price of soy in the world market is directly proportional to the gassing of rain forests. In Brazil the gassing of rain forests have reached the terrible number of 325 thousand km2 a year. The same situation evolves in Indonesia and if they don’t lessen gassing there won’t be any trees by 2022. This would cause ecological catastrophe and the island would be uninhabitable because of the disappearing of soil, the change of climate, etc. so the biofuel is absolutely not environment spare. The plants planted instead of rain forest can set much less CO2, than the rain forest could before, so the real emission of biofuels is tenfold of fossil fuels. Furthermore to products these plants much less worker are needed, than for the food crops, so unemployment would raise in these areas. The price of food is a great problem also. To product 100-liter biofuel we need as much corn as the energy need of a normal man for a year. Additionally the production of corn need 33% more fossil energy than the biofuel energy we can retrieve from it. In the beginning of 2007 there was a so called “tortilla rebellion” in Mexico, because the price of corn suddenly doubled, on the score of the American buying up of corn in the Middle-American country. The price of corn endanger directly the life of 2,7 billion men. While 10% of sugar production is used for biofuel the price of sugar in the world market also doubled. So the uncontrolled production of biofuels has dangerous security, economical and social risks. The other renewable energy is water. The material welfare of the world's population depends on maintaining access to increasingly scarce water and energy resources. Irresponsible use of the water has several problems. The water is absolute necessity to our living, we water, wash and cook with it and we can use it for creating of electric and kinetic energy.
10
Today the water is almost at service for us in unlimited volume, but the stores can run out. Overuse and pollution of the water generate serious problems all over the world. Building of a hydroelectric power station in a country affects on the water supply of an other country, which located lower flow of the river. These situations press the safety of a country significantly, because of its dependence. For example the Atatürk dike system dams the water both of Eufrates and Tiger river which fact has an affect on water supply of Syria and Iraq. This fact enhances conflicts on these low security level territories. Water usage has an affect on a country’s agricultural and economic results. SaudiArabia has a precedent for the most irrational water use. 75% of the water store is subsurface water, which is incapable of the renewal. Utilize of the water store resulted in prolific lands in desert. The country became self-sufficient even grain-exporter, but for these days the water store decreased to point of no return. Building of reservoirs can causes exaggerated changes in the rivers’ runoff. For the sake of the Assuan Dam 10% of Nile’s runoff gets to the sea. In highly polluted water 20 commercial genuses consumed the last 30 years, accordingly the fishing decreased notably. Last decade Yellow river didn’t reach the sea on the average three month in a year. The river’s runoff from bad to worse and it increasingly polluted. Resident population is obliged to use to water nevertheless that the level of heavy metal is above of safe load. For the sake of water Amu-Darja and Sir-Darja rivers don’t get to the Lake Amur since 1970’ years therefore it became arid. Additionally the lakebed is very polluted with radioactive sand and the wind blows the sand to the cropland. At the same time water use of humanity more and more increase and more and more area is involved but this fact is pregnant with consequences. In South-East Asia much of rivers are so much contaminated so that they unsuitable for consumption even after purification accordingly population use groundwater, however these artesian wells usually include arsenic. On this fact there was 200 thousands arsenic poisoning in West-Bengalia and probably half of the Bangladesh’s population (62 million person) is concerned. The water is stern problem for Mexico City too. Since they have not enough above ground water they have to pump subsurface water to supply citizens’ necessity. Because of this the city started to sink, by an extraordinary 2 cm per month. In 1994, the year of the Mexican economy slump, the state asked for a 2,8 billion m3 water from the Rio Grande from the United States and not financial help. For the sake of the American farmers the USA refused the Mexican demand. A possible conflict area is the Nile – so Egypt an Ethiopia. 86% 11
of the stock of water is from Ethiopia and Egypt’s dependence from the Nile is 97%. Egypt has already threatened several times with war if Ethiopia tries to raise its water use. We can understand from these examples that the use of water has a number of security risks. Supposedly the lessen of water and fossil fuels will be biggest problems of mankind in the near future.
Conclusions As we could understand in the previous climate change is the top challenge of mankind in the future. And man is one of the cause of climate change. The problem is so serious already, that without any action terrible economical, environmental, social and security problems are bound to happen. For the prevention of these we must lessen our CO2 emission, which can be done by using much less fossil fuels. The way things are going the best for this are renewable energies. But these energies also have security risks. The solution is somewhere halfway. We should lessen the us of fossil fuels, but we must control the use of biofuels and reserve our water supply for the next generations. States should subsidize the more expensive renewable energies, like solar energy, wind energy and geothermic energy, which have much less risks than biofuels or hydro energy.
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