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Some Energy Issues
Energy is the most vital and most basic element for life. Einstein actually realized that the very essence of the universe is energy and that everything that exists is made up of and could theoretically be fully converted into energy. The energy in a brick of 1 kg mass would allow an individual to live for more than 20 years.
However, in reality, it is not possible to be so effective in turning matter into energy. In reality, we need substances in a useful state to obtain energy from them.
One of the first substances that were consciously used for power generation was probably wood. It has the advantage that it can be used without any further preparation – except it had to be dry enough to burn. Through the better part of human history – from prehistoric times – it helped man to not only survive but also take control of his environment.
The next step was coal. It also can be burnt in the state it is found. Coal as a source of energy was an important step forward, because of its higher energy content. Even in modern times, we still use coal. While carbon powered locomotives belong to the past, many power plants today still use coal for the generation of electricity.
With the beginning of the industrial revolution, coal was not efficient enough. The rapid technological development required more and more energy and the next step was the use of oil. Without oil, the industrial revolution would not have been possible or would have taken much longer. Over times, other energy sources were discovered: natural gas, nuclear energy, solar, water and wind power, …
We can classify energy sources by the fact whether they are renewable or not. Most of the sources mentioned above are non-renewable. These are carbon, oil and natural gas. They were created inside the earth over hundreds of thousands of years. Theoretically we could say that they are also renewable, but nobody can wait that long. Thus, they are effectively finite and we will run out of them eventually. Carbon, oil and natural gas are also called fossil fuels due to their origin from plants and animals that lived million of years ago.
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