Why are we holding back

Can cities generate own energy with existing built environment? How about building integrated with photovoltaic panels to generate energy? For me, it seems not logical to build huge solar energy plants in the middle of nowhere to produce the same amount of energy within and on top of buildings where we live in. Another economic benefits for solar panels for houses in this economy is that a PV array would increase the value of property. Many of the large scale solar farms that are proposed are sited in wilderness that is extremely fragile as this is the same mentality about energy production as that of coal and petroleum. As the dialogue of sustainability disregards the ecology of natural lands for the good of society but in reality it is dysfunctional. I feel the same way about advocates for nuclear power based solely on the fact that these facilities don't emit carbon during energy production and some people call it clean. However every step in the process is highly dangerous and toxic to all living things before and after the energy is generated.

Solar panels also require mining elements and chemicals, just like every other type of energy generation device will cause environmental damage. All of the electricity we use is artificially created meaning, there is no such thing as naturally formed electricity. If we want to really look at how to deal with the energy issue in our society, we should first look to nature and ask ourselves the question, "Why aren't other species using electricity?" I really think that should be the basis of how we resolve the huge problems with energy production, consumption and conservation. On site energy production is not that far-fetched while most homes and buildings have their own boilers and cooling systems.

Solar panels aren't the best energy producers in dense urban context because of limited roof area on high rise building. It's hard to show return of investment without government incentives and people cannot afford one off investment in solar panels. Some people refuse to install solar panels due to their aesthetic feature. Building’s density, orientation, roof shape and design need to take into consideration during the urban planning phase which affect the solar installation potential. Density also trigger constraints in installing solar panels because the higher the density the more difficult to attain a net zero energy.

Source- https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jan/31/solar-power-what-is-holding-back-growth-clean-energy
Image Source- https://au.pinterest.com/pin/387028161697546632/

Comments

Start the fight

Most people don’t realize that food waste goes beyond the moral implications, wasting food when one billion people go to bed hungry every night and it is also a major environmental problem. It is so sad that we have the power to feed the hungry with all of the food we waste and yet we just throw it into the garbage. Food production is also the largest single driver of biodiversity loss and creates at least 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to wasting labor and resources, as food decomposes in landfills it produces methane, a greenhouse gas. Food waste is occur in the field, in storage, in transport, and at home. Everyone including farmers, food manufacturers, and consumers are responsible for food waste footprints. Despite what many consumers think, expiry dates are unregulated and do not indicate food safety. One of the best ways to tell if food has gone bad is not by using some fancy technology, but by simply putting our senses to w...

Living smaller and closer

As population density increase, the distance between people and their destinations decrease. Can reduces energy use, carbon emission, and waste in all sectors of city. The most important factor is automobile use, which is bad for the environment not only because they directly consume fuel and emit pollutants but because they facilitate the creation of far greater sources of energy and environmental damage. Automobile usage also encourage sprawling communities, over sized dwellings, inefficient commerce, and huge networks of redundant urban infrastructure. Density allows people walk from place to place due to proximity of services. Dense urban centers offer one of the few plausible templates for addressing one of the world’s most discouraging environmental illness, climate change. We need to find ways to reduce the size of our living spaces, and decrease the distance between ourselves and our destinations, and begin to step ourselves away from our near total dependence on automobil...

Less is more

Necessities and well-made special things that bring us happiness are great, but needless stuff are wasteful to produce, package and ship and once we start drowning in our stuff we either suffer from the stress of it or we end up send it packing to the landfill, where it may endure for many lifetimes. And while swapping and sharing and donating may postpone stuff's trip to landfill site, it still weighs heavy on the planet. Our obsession with owning needless things becomes nightmare to our planet. It’s time for us to start practicing minimalism and enjoy the beauty of simple living. We can take a stand and maximize the principles of minimalism to counter attack with less to discover how little we actually need to be happier, more content, and less stressed in life and also contribute towards sustainability by consuming less. Minimalism is just keeping things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it to improve in almost all aspects of our life. The...

SUSD0001

Search This Blog