Climate crisis and clean energy
“We have single mission to protect and hand on the planet to the next generation”
-Francois Hollande-
As for the above statement, what if we cannot protect the earth from climate crisis? As we feared, global climate change is occurring even faster than human predicted. From the time immemorial climate change has occurred. Within the past 650, 00 years there have been seven cycles of glacial increasing and decreasing, with the end of the last glacial period about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate epoch. According to NASA, the level of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is higher than usual levels since 1950. Increase levels of greenhouse gasses is a major impact on the warmth of the earth. According to many more, researchers found ancient evidence that reveals current warming happening ten times faster than the average rate of ice age recovery warming. Furthermore, human activities also effect to increase carbon dioxide by more than two hundred fifty times faster than it did natural sources after the last Ice Age. Climate change is caused by the increase in the Earth's temperature (global warming) which comes from adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than those occurring naturally. These extra greenhouse gases mainly come from burning fossil fuels to produce energy, as well as from other human activities like cutting down rainforests, agriculture, farming livestock and the production of chemicals. Climate change is a significant alteration in the statistical distribution of weather. This could be a change of the average weather condition, the average date of the wet season begins in the tropic or changes in the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms. However, the earth’s climate significantly changed over the last 150 years. At the present world is suffering with various climate crises, and, more than present, it will affect the future vastly. The climate crisis that most impacts the world is global temperature rise, warming ocean, shrinking ice sheets, glacial retreat, decreased snow cover, rise of sea level, and declined Arctic Ice Sea, extreme events, acidification of the ocean.
Greenhouse effect is a huge problem when it comes to climate change. It is the natural process that heats the earth surface. When the sun’s energy comes to the earth, some amount of that energy is reflected back to the space and the rest of energy absorbed and re-radiant by greenhouse gasses. The greenhouse gasses include Water Vapor, Methane, Carbon Dioxide, CFC etc. When increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere increase, the absorbed energy warms the atmosphere and the earth’s surface. Currently, 51 billion tons of greenhouse gasses are released each year due to human activities. First, burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gasses has an effect on increasing greenhouse gasses. Fossil fuel is a non-renewable energy which covers 80 percent of energy needs in the world. They provide electricity, energy needs of transportation and heats. Also, it's its feed process that makes a huge range of products, from steel to plastic. Clean energy found a solution for this greenhouse effect because a major fact of releasing greenhouse gasses is burning fossil fuel as a non-renewable energy. Clean energy is the process that generates energy which does not release greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. Most of the clean energy is renewable energy, including wind power, some hydro resources and solar powered generation. Let’s look into the clean energy in more details.
Wind Power
The wind is a very powerful energy that has been used since 7000 years ago. Today, wind energy is used to generate electricity throughout the world. In order to harness wind energy, turbines are used, which are used to generate electricity. Currently China, Germany, the U.S. are the leading wind energy providers. Most wind power comes from onshore turbines as well as offshore turbines are expend currently. The most offshore farms are in the United Kingdom and Germany. In 2016 the first offshore farm of the U.S. is opened.
Solar power
Solar Power is the most free and reliable energy available on the earth. The most exciting fact is that the amount of solar energy which reaches the earth’s surface in one hour covers energy requirements on the earth for the whole year. Therefore, solar energy is the most accessible energy as a renewable energy. From 2007 to 2017, the world’s installed energy capacity from photovoltaic increased a whopping 4,300 percent. Solar thermal is using hot water, heating and cooling.
Hydro power
For decades people generated electricity using hydro power from building a dam or barrier to control water power. Hydro power energy is the biggest and most reliable energy than solar energy and wind power. In the world most countries usually use this method to generate electricity, among them China, the U.S., Brazil, Canada and Russia are the leaders of hydro power providers.
Biomass energy
This is the energy that is converted into solid fuel made from plant materials into electricity. Biomass energy includes biodiesel, wood and wood waste and biogas. Biomass energy able to fuel vehicles, heat building and produce electricity. The world is going to suffer from climate crisis, biomass energy is flexible and low-cost renewable energy that is able to be used easily because converting agriculture, industrial and domestic waste into the solid, liquid and gas fuel is a more possible and flexible way to generate energy.
As mentioned, those are the clean energy using currently around the world for preventing climate crisis. But we have to remember many more things to do to escape from the climate crisis. Clean energy is the most important part as a solution to this problem. Therefore, most countries and governments in the world give more priorities to generate renewable energy sources. If the world gives more and more touch for this clean energy against the climate crisis, we can give a clean planet to the next generation.
Reference
https://www.edfenergy.com/.../renewable-energy-sources
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
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