On 31st October 2011 A baby born in India was declared the world’s seven billionth person by child rights group Plan International.
Baby Nargis was born at 07:25 local time in Mall village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state.
The United Nations also estimated that on Monday 31 October 2011, the world’s population would reach seven billion. This astonishingly large figure is mainly due to improved healthcare worldwide which has had a direct result on people living longer. It is reported that in the last 50 years, the average world life expectancy has increased from 48 years old to 68 years old. This of course proves to be exciting for scientific and medical purposes but the figure will continue to rise as science and medicine makes further advances. Therefore with people continuing to reproduce the world population is going to get larger and larger at a very rapid rate.
World population in numbers
- 1 billion- 1804
- 2 billion- 1927
- 3 billion- 1959
- 4 billion- 1974
- 5 billion- 1987
- 6 billion- 1999
- 7 billion- 2011
Source: UN
What does this mean for world energy?
It has been knowledge for some time that non-renewable resources are running out and although new oil and gas is being discovered it will not be enough to cater for an ever growing world population. So what is the alternative? Can the world rely on solar, wind or water energy to maintain everthing people have become accustomed to?
BP argues NO!
On December 20th 2011, BP announced that after 40 years they were closing down their solar energy business. It was once believed to be the business that would carry BP into the future but with the global economic crisis they have found it more and more difficult to run a successful business and they made the decision to cease trading as the sector had become completely unprofitable.
BP however are not the only solar energy business to suffer; many others around the world have had to halt their production due to rising costs and a difficult market place. Solyndra, of Caliafornia and Solon of Germany are two other companies who have filed for creditor protection, also in December of last year.
BP, although defeated in the solar industry apparantly remain committed to Alternative energy; having invested 7 billion dollars to date since 2005 they are on track to invest a further 1 billion dollars by 2015 however, their focus is now on wind and biofuels – not the sun. (www.ft.com)
On the 12th of December the British media reported that findings showed that Britain will have to face a future of pwer cuts due to the Government’s plans to rely heavily on wind farms.
The governement argues that it is a long term solution to the energy problem and that generating energy from wind will prove to be a sustainable and cheaper option. But a report by the Scientific Alliance claims that the UK will be in an energy crisis ‘by the middle of the decade’. They estimate that five wind turbines would have to be put up every day to generate the Government’s target amount of electricity from wind production.
….A third of all UK electricity is due to be powered by wind by 2020?
The Future:
Researchers agree on two factors; the first that reliance on alternative energy is a long way off and secondly, that policy makers can accelerate or delay any potential developments.
US chart of energy production
The size of the energy market is phenomenol; global power consumption was a total of 150 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2010. The utility industry in the US alone produced an estimated 3.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2010. Almost half of that was produced by coal, while solar power contributed less than 0.1%.
Wind power is one of the fastest-growing sources of renewable energy in the world. But by the end of 2010 there were still only 121.2 gigawatts of generated capacity—representing around 1.5% of global electricity consumption.
Policy makers can speed up or delay these developments. A price on carbon, either a tax or a carbon-trading mechanism, would make new technologies competitive with cheap oil and coal more quickly, encouraging investment in and adoption of alternative energies. Governments can also spend money on research, development and pilot projects, which will greatly accelerate the project from idea stages to reality. Higher oil prices also make all the energy alternatives more attractive to investors and consumers.
But will this ever be a reality?
Next month: An in depth look into nuclear energy.
