Week 9

In this week's session of TWC, the topic discussed was Energy and World Change(Past, Present and Future). As with most of the sessions, quotes were abundant. However for this week, the quote is rather weird, in the sense that, singapore is being mentioned alongside america. The quote:“IF EVERYONE CONSUMED AS MUCH ENERGY AS THE AVERAGE SINGAPOREAN AND U.S. RESIDENT, THE WORLD’S OIL RESERVES WOULD BE DEPLETED IN 9 YEARS”. I never thought that singapore would be a high consumer of energy, as in, i know singapore consumes a lot of energy but i never thought that we could be compared with america, we being an asian country( asian countries generally are more conservative and thrifty).

There is growing need for energy as populations grow and we use new technology that uses energy. With such a great demand, many renewable energies are being tapped into such as methane,geothermal and more importantly solar. I think that solar is really important as Earth is sitting in the luxury band in the solar system. mars is too cold and venus is too hot. Though with differing rates at different parts of earth, we actually get a lot of sun light. Many of us in the class also think that singapore has been losing out a lot by not hopping onto the solar bandwagon when it initially started. We constantly complain for the heat and the sunlight in singapore but we do not really make use of this feature here in singapore.

The presentations in todays class were about exploring renewable energy, the storage of energy and also the stands of world leaders towards adopting these green energies that generally take a decade for it to pay off itself. As much as the class would like all these green initiatives to be implemented, we are generally helpless unless we can actually become a world leader and make real changes. People like to be pushed and they can only be pushed or pulled with policies that give them the incentive to do so. Many of us think that we would move only when we are showed the direction to go, when certain amount of returns are guaranteed. An interesting policy Germany has placed is the money you get for putting power back into the country's grid. If we harvest energy and have excess the country would pay the individual for it. And this actually motivate them to make energy as the price offer is not too bad. Normally the net effect of using and selling the energy, would result in families earning. Unfortunately, singapore does not have this feature of our power grid. Otherwise, i would gladly buy a cycling machine at home and cycle to manufacture some form of electrical energy to be sold into the power grid.

I would rate this session of TWC a 9 out of 10 thanks to the interesting articles and topics as well as the ability to end on time:)