In chapter 9, Brown discusses three different non-fossil fuel types of energy. Briefly (in 75 words or less) summarize what he says about ONE of these three types of energy and then discuss that one type of energy with respect to YOUR country. In doing that, I’d like you to find ONE article in LexisNexis on the subject of your country and the type of energy you are focusing on. I’d like you to DISCUSS the topic, so please express opinions. Don’t just summarize Brown and then summarize what is in the article you found. Instead, summarize Brown and then discuss (using opinions and information from the article you found) the topic of that type of energy in your country. "Discuss" by definition means "express opinions."
I’d like you to incorporate information from that article into your discussion and I’d like you to use citations and put references to both Brown and your article at the end of your posting. Use APA format. Some of you are still pretty weak on APA format, so please be sure to look at this http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/ (Article from a database) and http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/08/ (Basic format for books). Do not count your references in your word count.
After you have written YOUR post, remember to respond to the posting of one other student in the class.
The usual rules apply: spell check, paragraph, be careful of using citations well.
29 comments:
The use of solar energy is increasing worldwide. “Solar energy can be harnessed with both solar photo-voltaics (PV) and solar thermal collectors”(Brown, 2011, p121). Both methods can turn sunlight into electricity in different ways. Lots of countries have built, or are planning to build certain megawatts of solar thermal generating capacity, and solar energy will be very common soon.
According to Lau, who is an assistant director in Friends of the Earth, said, “Hong Kong should start looking at better energy alternatives that are ‘cleaner and cheaper’” (Hong Kong Standard, 1999). Solar energy is a clean, reusable and environmental-friendly energy. We should stop burning fossil fuel to hurt the environment continuously.
I strongly agree with Lau that we should start looking for a better energy. But investing in solar energy may involve a huge amount of capital to startup, so government should subsidize companies who are willing to invest in this technology. In order to increase firms’ incentives to use solar energy, government can even increase the pollution tax. The operating cost goes up as the pollution tax goes up. This can force firms to go green.
In Hong Kong, actually some schools and universities have used solar energy already for a few years. Based on my personal experience, my high school in Hong Kong has used solar energy to supply the electricity for physics laboratory since 2005. Even it contains a very little portion of electricity used in school, but it is a great trail and start.
In conclude, burning fossil fuel hurts the environment seriously and has lots of impacts to the world. We must look for other green energy to replace, and solar energy is a good choice.
References
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Hong Kong Standard. (1999, Dec 4). Solar power is fuel of the future, say greens. Retrieved Jul 15, 2011, from LexisNexis: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacad
“It is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales up easily and can be developed quickly”(Brown, 2011, p117). Brown described wind power as an important renewable energy. Many years ago, wind energy was dominated by small number of countries. However, wind power becomes more popular and is preferred by most of the countries along with the recent environmental concerns.
HKC, which is a mainland property developer, assigned a renewable energy plan to Hong Kong energy. “A roughly 10 per cent decline in the cost of wind turbines and towers in the past 15 months - as well as Beijing's plan to guarantee wind power tariffs of 51 to 61 fen per kilowatt-hour - had helped raise project returns”(Ng, 2009). China has been developing wind power for some years. As the consumption of electricity remains high in Hong Kong, Hong Kong government would better develop renewable energy in order to cope with the problems of carbon dioxide emissions. Hong Kong has close connection with China, so the co-operation of HKC and Hong Kong energy benefits Hong Kong a lot. In my opinion, because Hong Kong locates near the sea and it usually has off-shore wind, wind power could be developed in large scale. Too much carbon dioxide is emitted to the environment, which harms the Earth seriously. Developing renewable resources is a good way to reduce emissions. However, Hong Kong has limited area and high population. Dividing large areas to build wind turbines is such a difficult thing to implement. Other than co-operating with the mainland China, I think Hong Kong government can consider building wind turbines on some islands of Hong Kong. As I know, Hong Kong has several islands with small number of people living there. Those islands could be great places to develop wind power.
All in all, in order to protect our environment and provide the best resources to the next generation, wind power can help to solve the environmental issue, emissions of carbon dioxide. People should reduce using old energy such as coal and oil. With such a high population and energy consumption, Hong Kong should get a new start to develop renewable energy. Because of the geographical advantage, wind power can be developed in a large scale if Hong Kong has enough space to do so.
References:
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Ng, E. (2009, October 5). Hong Kong Energy and patent to grow capacity; Wind power firms to add 1,000 MW in 5 years. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from LexisNexis Academic: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/lnacui2api/auth/checkbrowser.do?rand=0.3424323907155091&cookieState=0&ipcounter=1&bhjs=1&bhqs=1
In response to Kingsley Wong’s comment, I agree that green energy is the only way for Hong Kong in order to protect the environment. I understand that solar energy can be developed as another renewable energy other than wind power. I believe that solar energy and wind power are similar products. They both need natural things to run the facilities; for example, wind power needs wind to run the wind turbines. They are not acquired by burning old energy such as coal and oil. So, government should consider developing both of them and use the products of nature in the best way. Besides, government should not be short-sighted. Although there is a huge set-up cost when we start running these kinds of renewable energy, we and the environment will be the beneficiaries in the long-run.
In response to Karman Poon’s comment, I strongly agree that some kinds of non-fossil fuel energy should be used in Hong Kong as soon as possible. We need to give up using fossil fuel energy before it is used up. The only way to do that is implementing the renewable energy. This is not only on wind energy, but also on solar energy, etc. The world gives us some unlimited natural resources such as wind and sunlight. We should use them in an efficient way. Building wind turbines in some small islands in Hong Kong is feasible. Hong Kong government can even co-operate with China, and develop a large scale of wind turbines between the boundaries of China and Hong Kong. This may benefit both places and reduces the start-up cost.
In response to Poon’s comment, I agree that Hong Kong is a high energy consumption city especially during summer. Because of the humid and hot weather during summer, air condition has been heavily used. In my opinion, although Hong Kong might not have enough space to build wind turbines to satisfy the whole city current electricity consumption, developing wind turbines in the limited space can still reduce emission of carbon dioxide. I also agree that Hong Kong has geographical advantage to generate offshore wind, and it can reduce the cost of electricity since cost of wind power is lesser than oil and gas.
Brown described that wind energy is an important energy of green energies in chapter 9 from the textbook. According to Brown (2011), “For many years, a small handful of countries dominated growth in wind power, but this is changing as the industry goes global, with more than 70 countries now developing wind resources” (p. 118). Right, most countries are developing wind resources. Why? Because wind energy is plentiful, cheap, and largely be spread (Brown, 2011, p. 117). In addition, Brown said that wind turbines automatically work by themselves (Brown, 2011, p. 119). Therefore, it is costless, and most countries prefer to use the wind energy. In my country, South Korea, the government also prefers to develop green energies, especially wind energy. According to TendersInfo (2010), “By 2019, South Korea will have 1000 wind turbines out in the sea, located around 30km off the coast of southwestern South and North Jeolla provinces if the ambitious plans come to fruition.” (p. 1). Wind energy keeps growing, and it will be more and more in the future in South Korea. In conclude, I think wind energy is a good green energy for my country, South Korea because South Korea is surrounded by water on three sides. Therefore, it is easy to develop and use wind energy in South Korea. Moreover, I really like wind energy because it is costless and plentiful as Brown said.
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
TendersInfo (2010, September 22). Korea Republic of: South Korea plans KRW9tn offshore wind power complex. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from LexisNexis Academic:
http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/
In response to Poon’s comment, I totally agree with Poon’s opinion that “Wind power becomes more popular and is preferred by most of the countries along with the recent environment concerns.” Also, Brown briefly described that wind energy is an important energy of green energies. Poon also described that wind energy is good for Hong Kong. Poon said that “Because Hong Kong locates near the sea and it usually has off-shore wind, wind power could be developed in large scale.” I agree with this. In my country, South Korea is surrounded by water on three sides. Therefore, wind energy is good to keep growing and developing in South Korea. Also, Poon suggests that “Hong Kong government can consider building wind turbines on some islands of Hong Kong.” I think this suggestion is very good for Hong Kong. I hope this suggestion will come true in Hong Kong in order to reduce carbon dioxide.
Geothermal energy is heat energy from ground water. Brown explains “the heat in the upper six miles of the earth’s crust contains 50,000 times as much energy as found in all of the world’s oil and gas reserves combined”(2011, p.127). The potential of this energy is vast, such as providing electricity, heating homes, but those benefits are found in only limited area which is so-called P ing of Fire (Brown, 2011, p.127). Japan has potential to take advantage of geothermal energy because of the abundance of volcanoes. According to an article, geothermal energy is one and half times cheaper than power from oil-fired plants (Mcmahon, 2008, p.1).
I think if Japan invest more on the geothermal energy project and move on to using it as a main source of energy, it would be great investment to save money. However, it must be tough decision to make because geothermal energy is at the mercy of the elements. Today our world is on the edge. The natural cycle is getting messed up day by day. It might not be the best time to move on to geothermal energy all the sudden for Japan. Especially Japan is such a small country and has many active volcanoes and earthquakes. They must be tightly related to geothermal energy. Even small thing might cause serious disaster. For this reason, I would not recommend geothermal energy right now. In stead of moving on to this all the sudden, we should find the best way to stabilize nature cycle and then we should move on to the geothermal energy step by step.
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the Edge. New York: W.W. Norton.
Mcmahon, M. (2008). Japan’s spa lovers fuel fire against geothermal giants. The Globe and Mail (Canada), B9. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/
In response to Wong’s comment, I agree with your opinion. First of all, solar energy will be necessary source of energy sooner or later. Second of all, I also liked the movement of forcing companies to go green using tax system. However, I felt that you only focus on Hong Kong. It seems like you are missing something really important. Hong Kong is such a small country/area and it must be really important to collaborate with mainland China to go green. You might as well want to shit your frame of reference little bit.
In response to Hama’s comment, I do not agreeing with your opinions. As you say on your comment, Japan has potential to develop geothermal energy because of the abundance of volcanoes. Geothermal energy is one of green and renewable energy. Compare geothermal energy with solar and wind energy, geothermal energy is more stable. However, I have never heard about any accident from geothermal energy, so I think geothermal energy is one of the safety energy. As far as I know there are some new housing in Japan are using a simple geothermal set-up to make a heater. It reduces a little bit demand of electricity in Japan.
Lester R. Brown praised on the benefit of wind power plants because it is abundant, widely distributed and relatively low cost compare to other renewable power plants; it scales up easily and develop quickly (2011, p117). The wind turbines also have high potential of producing energy that can generate 40 times the current world consumption of electricity (Brown, 2011, p118). The world is now rushed to build the wind power plants to achieve renewable energy because it is harmless to nature and takes small scale of land. There are many countries replace there coal power plant with the wind turbine. Especially, Spain successes to product the wind power plant in nation and outside of countries. They produce 14 percent of their electricity form wind in 2009 (Brown, 2011, p118) and are also third largest was the world's third largest wind turbine manufacturer in 2008 (The Ko-rea Time, 2011, par. 8).
Korea is now tries to learn the Spain’s knowledge of success in wind power plant. Korea governments promise to replace 20 percent energy with renewable energy by 2020 (The Korea Time, 2011, par. 1). Although they create many renewable energy companies, they show inefficiency to produce renewable energy and not much increase from 2 percent of renewable energy (The Korea Time, 2011, par. 1). I think it is a great opportunity for Korea to learn new technology to produce wind turbine. Korea is surrounded by water on three sides that support large scales of wind power plant sites and take advantage of off shore wind. Korea is very success and strong in IT sector. If Korea combines with the IT with the new technology of wind power plant, these will advance another step of wind turbine. If Korea success to produce efficient wind power plants and replace coal power plant with these, Korea can establish the two components of Plan B. Stabilizing climate by reducing CO2 and restoring the natural support systems (Brown, 2011, p96). Mining coal and pumping natural gas will be reduced which damaged natural.
References:
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
The Korea Times. (2010, September 19). Spain, Korea forge ties in renewable energy. Retrieved July 16, 2011, from LexisNexis Academic: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/?
I strongly agree to the Karman Poon’s comment that Hong Kong has benefit of many sites of wind power plants because Hong Kong takes advantage of off-shore wind. Similarly, Korea is surrounded by water on three sides that support large scales of wind power plant sites. Island nations will definitely benefit in future when they develop massive wind turbines. Furthermore, I strongly agree that the renewable power plant will solve problem of CO2 emission. CO2 is largely emitted to atmosphere during non-renewable fuel (coal and oil) burning in the power plants. Since the wind turbines replace non-renewable power plant, the CO2 reduce in air and that will help preserve our nature.
In response to Chung’s comment, I agree with you that wind energy is an important renewable energy source. There are more than 70 counties develop wind resources, because of wind energy is plentiful, cheap, and largely be spread. In your country, the government prefers to develop wind energy. Does it become the main energy source in your country now? You said the wind energy would be more and more in the future in South Korea. What policy the community should follow? What steps the government should do next to improve the wind energy using in your country. You should explain more deep in it.
post1.
In the chapter 9 of the book World on the edge, Brown discusses three different non-fossil fuel and renewable types of energy sources. They are wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower energy. I want to discuss solar energy in China, which is much more “ubiquitous” than wind energy (Brown, 2011, p.121). It is an easy way to transform energy to electricity and the source of solar energy is very abundant in the world. In China, there are many cities start to use solar energy system. However, Yin (2009) says that China is the world’s largest emitter for global warming that dealing with the country still relies on coal for up to 80 percent of energy.
Based on my own experience, I only see people use solar water heaters in rural areas, not use very frequently in cities. In villages, the average height of building is three to four floors. Hence, all homes have solar water heaters in rooftop to provide them heat and electricity. However, the building in cities is very high, and the style of the building is modernistic which I think is hard to set up solar water heaters in rooftop.
post2.
Only few solar water heaters cannot provide all energy for whole building’s daily use and I think the solar water heaters will affect the overall appearance of building. Hence, these may be the reasons that people do not use solar water heater very frequency in cities. If the solar energy becomes a main energy source in a city, that city will become a low carbon city. For the government, they can change the style of the building. Making solar water heaters become a part of all new buildings or use special glasses in the building, which can capture the sun’s radiant energy or sunlight. Moreover, government should consider variety policies that to help more cities drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewables energy. For instance, industries and companies start to uses solar energy first, because they are main user of electricity and industries are the main producer of air pollution. To develop countries, we must do it in a green way. Transform fossil fuels to renewables energy is a smart way to save money and to solve the air pollution problem.
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Yin, S. C. (2009, December 5). Solar city shows how to develop the green way. The Straits Times (Singapore). Retrieved July 15, 2011, from LexisNexis: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12359181222&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T12359181225&cisb=22_T12359181224&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=144965&docNo=4
PART B:
According to the South China Morning Post, “the panels will give students hands-on experience in energy and environmental studies, and act as the prototype for a three-year project which could eventually lead to solar panels on hundreds of schools across the SAR (Polly 2002).” Considered myself as one of the students involved in that project, I had learn such knowledge of how solar can affect our environment by having the solar energy around my school every day. "The point is to allow students to learn about the relations between solar energy and the different elements of weather (Polly 2002)." True, I remembered how students got interested in everything when the solar energy were all around us in the school, our teachers have been teaching us a lot about the environment problems since solar panels helped save a bit from it. It is really important for us to know how important environment problems are to us, if my school did not tried to first adopt this energy to the school, I would not have as much eco-awareness as now. In my opinion, I think this project has really brought a lot of concerns to the society, not only the solar energy but the reasons of why it exists. Also, once they succeed on saving energy, it can also lead more and more schools or companies to go green. Furthermore, I think to be able to cultivate people with a good eco-awareness and behavior, a really good way to do is to instill this knowledge through childhood education, to deeply increase their eco-awareness through the most naive and fastest learning period of their life. In addition, after the concerns my school has brought to the society, I am glad to see Hong Kong government has been trying to adopt more solar energy into the city.
In conclusion, it always has to have someone to step up and act first in order to lead people to see the effect.
References:
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Polly, Hui. (2002, January 5). Pupils look to learn from ray of sunlight. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/?
PART A:
In Chapter 9, Brown mentioned three non-fossil fuel types of energy; one of it is solar energy. Solar energy can be use in two ways: solar photo-voltaic (PV) and solar thermal collector (Brown 121). According to Brown’s description, solar PV is something with “silicon-based and thin film that can converts sunlight directly into electricity (Brown 121).” For the solar thermal technology, “a large scale technology uses reflectors to concentrate sunlight on a liquid, producing steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity. On a smaller scale, solar thermal collectors can capture the sun’s radiant energy to warm water, as in rooftop solar water heaters (Brown 122).’’ To me, apparently, solar energy can really helps to save energy and improve the climate problems of our world based on the following information provided from the author: “With concerns about climate change escalating, cumulative PV installations could reach 1.5 million megawatts in 2020 (Brown 123).” “The American Solar Energy Society notes that solar thermal resources in the U.S. Southwest can satisfy current U.S. electricity needs nearly four times over (Brown 125).”
Solar energy has been given me a huge concern since I was in primary school. The primary school I studied in is called Tsuen Wan's CCC Kei Wai Primary School; it has a dimidiation that separates morning (am) and afternoon (pm) sections and I was studying in the afternoon section. In 2002, my school announced that the afternoon section will move to Ma Wan next year. It will be the second school to boast solar panels in Hong Kong, as the first one is the morning section, which they will stay in the original location of the school. It was a huge concern to me when I first heard this news; lots of incessant questions rises immediately in my brain, but the main question was: What is solar energy and what is our purpose to move thousands of students to a whole new place because of the solar energy project? After the announcement, the school has immediately introduced and informed us about what and how solar energy will affects our environments and lives. From that moment on, solar energy seemed to closely involve in my life.
In response to Poon's analysis, there are some main points that I agree on. First is the consumption of electricity remains extraordinarily high in Hong Kong. Second is the Hong Kong government should develop renewable energy in order to cope with the problems of carbon dioxide emissions. Hong Kong is a city with high demand of everything, causes an undoubted excess consumption of energy. Although Hong Kong can co-operate with mainland China, we cannot just rely on China all the times for such a huge expenditure of energy. In fact we have already been importing every goods and services from other countries without exporting. There are millions of people living in Hong Kong, if natural disaster happens to us one day, all we can do is get helps from others. If we have the abilities, land and environment advantage to utilize, I couldn't agree more to build some renewable energy in our land and stop relying too much on others.
Part 1
In chapter 9, Brown (2011) discusses the three types of renewable energy, wind, solar, and geothermal, all of which I find to be extremely fascinating. Brown (2011) explains that there are two popular types of solar energy, which are solar photovoltaics and solar thermal energy collectors (p.121). Solar photvotaics (PV) describes the process of directly converting sunlight to electricity by using the black silicon panels that we all have seen, or using a really thin piece of film (Brown, 2011, p.121). Solar thermal energy concentrates trapped sunlight onto a liquid, which creates the steam needed to power a turbine (Brown, 2011, p.122).
Brown (2011) briefly mentions my country’s (Saudi Arabia) efforts to integrate solar energy into its saline conversion operation and replace the 1.5 million barrels of oil its uses on a daily basis to deliver fresh water to its citizens (p.123). While it is encouraging to see my country take a positive step forward in removing itself from oil dependence, I am still bothered that additional government sponsored projects are not doing more to help take advantage of solar energy and more importantly, help the average Saudi access cheap, eco-friendly energy sources. To understand my country and its reputation as being the Middle East’s wealthiest country, it is vital that people realize that this wealth is concentrated on a few families and that the majority of the population lives meagerly (less than 20k USD/Year).
Part 2
...In addition, I see a more troubling trend, in which the wealthiest individuals and government leaders in my country are more concerned with only investing in eco-friendly renewable energy if it continues to consolidate their power and wealth. While it is just my opinion, I think that they do not want the average Saudi to be self-sufficient, which could happen if the majority of homes had solar panels attached to the roofs of their homes. Instead, they want to remain the primary supplier to the peoples’ primary demands, which means that they can control costs and create codependence. I get very angry when I think about how our society works. For example, in past chapters, Brown (2011) has mentioned that Saudi Arabia is leasing land in poorer countries (p.66). As a Saudi, I know that while the government has been involved in some of these land grabs, I also know that oil rich, or oil backed, Saudi private businesses are also looking to capitalize on being able to sell food to Saudis. They recognize that oil is not always going to be a part of their future and so they are looking for new ways to make a profit. I only mention this because it is example of how society works in my country. Rather than investing in ways to grow food within urban areas amd empowering my fellow Saudis, those with power would rather risk leasing lands in other, very poor countries, in order to control the food supply and create a demand that only they can deliver.
Part 3
...Watkins (2011) reiterates some of Brown’s (2011) reporting and provides some more detail about my country’s plans to replace oil energy with solar energy in his article “The Saudis Go Solar.” Watkins (2011) explains that the government owned electrical company and ARAMCO, which is the state-owned oil company that I worked for, are pointing towards solar energy being Saudi Arabia’s energy future (p.22). In fact, Watkins (2011) cites the Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources explaining that the goal is generate as much energy from solar power as energy generated from its role in oil industry (p.22). While Watkins’ (2011) article sounds promising for those of us who support eco-friendly use of renewable energy, the real question should be how will all of this renewable energy benefit and improve the quality of life for the average Saudi? Will the same individuals who profit the most from the oil industry be the same recipients of eco-friendly solar energy?
Resources
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Watkins, E. (2011). The Saudis go solar. Oil & Gas Journal, p.22. Retrieved July 16, 2011 from http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/?sfi=AC00NBGenSrch&csi =281437&shr=t
Question to fellow students:
If you read my lengthy post, do you think renewable energy should be owned by the powerful elite? What are some ways that the average person can become energy independent?
In chapter 9 of the World on the Edge by Lester R. Brown, he talks about three types of energy that are replacing the old ones. One of those new energy, wind produced energy is one which can be produced with low cost and developed quickly. And the good news of wind produced energy does not end here; “Since wind turbines occupy only 1 percent of the land covered by a wind farm, farmers and ranchers can continue to grow grain and graze cattle on land devoted to wind farms” (Brown, 2011, P118). As I believe wind energy to be one of the best resolutions to climate change, I also looked up an article in LexisNexis to find out what my country has been doing with wind. So am I glad when I found out about the good news, “They said Taiwan's coastal areas are ideal for the development of wind power because they have six months of strong northwest winds each year, with an average wind speed of five to six meters per second.”
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge: how to prevent environmental and economic collapse. New York, NY, USA: W W Norton & Co Inc.
BBC Worldwide Monitoring. (2007). Wind energy cuts Taiwan CO2 emissions by 250,000 tons a year - officials. Central News Agency website. Retrieved from http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/
In response to Ho Won Song’s post, I think it is interesting that wind turbine that produces renewable energy actually has something to do with the IT sector. I know Korea has always been quite powerful in the IT sector but did not know it may help to grow the wind energy to grow. It is actually funny that most of us know nuclear power, natural gas, oil, and coal are not answer but without realizing how much harm they actually do to the environment. And at the same time, there are just better alternative energies that can be used to replace all the bad ones. However, the real question is which one of the good ones is the real answer.
In response to what Kingsley Wong posted, I found it encouraging to read your post, as it may signal the use of renewable energy in Hong Kong for the good of the whole community. I noticed that you referenced different taxes and I am wondering if schools are paid for by taxes too? If Hong Kong installs PV solar panels on every school, then its operational cost would decrease as they would move towards being energy independent and the community would benefit in multiple ways. As a Saudi, I can see the example that you have given as a possible model of how my country should view renewable energy. I was wondering if your country’s government has given incentives for individuals to install PV solar systems on homes or apartment complexes? I look forward to learning more about your country’s eco-friendly moves. Great post!
In response to Poon’s post, I can imagine that wind energy is the primary way in a land where much of its land is exposed to the coast. I have heard that Hong Kong has quite a few skyscrapers and I was wondering how significant are the breezes on the mainland? I have seen many different models of wind turbines and there are models that skyscrapers could install on their rooftops. The type of turbine that I have in mind, are not the ones that look like large windmills, but they are the ones that have small, cuplike arms that catch the wind and spin. The energy could then be directly delivered to a large, energy consuming source. Have you heard of this sort of concept or is it already being implemented? I can see tech-savvy Hong Kong being one of the world’s leaders in integrating eco-friendly technologies.
Brown discusses about developing renewable sources of energy in our current situation and expectation about the future by 2020 based on our plan. Wind energy is one of the most useful renewable resources, and it has been already practiced in many countries. Brown says, “It is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales up easily and can be developed quickly” (Brown, 2011, p117). His information from each country, we could definitely know that the outcome of wind generating capacity is equivalent to the fossil fuel productivity without spending more land, time, and money. In South Korea, a government official said, “South Korea plans to build an $8.2 billion offshore wind farm in the Yellow Sea” (UPI Energy, 2010). Our country is also putting a lot of efforts in harnessing wind to develop our renewable sources of energy since South Korea is one of the largest energy consumer and polluter. I really do think this is urgent task for our country. Even though a government mentioned the issues about serious consumption of electricity many times, most people do not listen or care about it at all. Therefore, developing the use of wind energy is vital to save our time and money, and it will solve some problems of fossil fuel consumption economically I believe. President Lee Myung-Bak said, “The wind power industries can become the backbone of our economy like semiconductor and shipbuilding industries” (UPI Energy, 2010). Although South Korea is small country, our economy grew so fast within past 50 years. Everybody worked so hard to make our country rich and powerful after the Korean War, however, once our living conditions has been improved, it is true that many people doesn’t really care about arising issues or problems in our country anymore. We certainly need everyone’s interest.
References
Brown, Lester R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
UPI Energy. (2010, Nov 3). South Korea Plans Offshore Wind Project. Retrieved Jul 17, 2011, from LexisNexis Academic: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/lnacui2api/auth/checkbrowser.do?rand=0.5063021415465448&cookieState=0&ipcounter=1&bhjs=1&bhqs=1
In response to Suyeong Chung, developing wind energy can be considered as very suitable plan since our country is surrounded by water on three sides. We have a lot of potential to improve related equipment and technology. Also, it is good renewable resource for small countries because wind turbines occupy small portion of the wind land with producing strong productivity. I notice little different information from Suyeong’s comment. I read that 500 wind turbines will be installed by 2019 in my article, and it is 1000 wind turbines in Suyeong’s article. I do not know which plan is right, however it is true that our wind power project will develop our energy economy.
Wind is one of the renewable powers that brown mentioned in his book. He claims that wind power “is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales up easily and cab be developed quickly” (Brown, 2011, p117). United State is actively developing wind power. Texas will have 38,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity if all wind farms are completed in 2025; and the power is equal to 38 coal-fired power plants (Brown, 2011, p118).
According to Yu’s article “We need more ambitious target for renewable energy in HK” (Yu, 2009), our chief executive is willing to develop renewable energy and decrease reliance on coal in Hong Kong. In the article, Yu provides an idea of renewable energy, which is “installing renewable energy set-ups in new buildings” (Yu, 2009). However, I think not only the new buildings, every building should install renewable energy set-up, like solar panel or wind turbines. If those renewable energy set-ups can support the demand of whole building, our demand on coal could reduce a lot.
As far as I know, Hong Kong has only one wind farm that locates in Lamma Island. Therefore, I am pleased to hear the suggestion of building up offshore wind farms in Hong Kong (Yu, 2009). I think this is a very good idea. Hong Kong is a “concrete jungle”; it does not have enough land to develop wind farm. If the wind farm could build on offshore, it will solve the limitation of developing renewable energy in Hong Kong. I hope that suggestion will carry out as soon as possible.
References
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge. Norton, NY: Earth Policy Institute.
Yu, W. (2009, July 28). We need more ambitious target for renewable energy in HK. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from LexisNexis Academic: http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacademic/
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