Energy has always been a problem due to the source that it comes from. People have relied on oil to power up their place of living, cars and many other things. Unfortunately on Hawaii, most of the energy depends on the burning of oil. This is the reason why it is of utmost importance to introduce new sources of energy so Hawaii can move away from depending on oil as the major source to generate energy.
During the weekend I came across videos at this site https://sites.google.com/site/ics314fall2011/modules/overview-of-energy-in-hawaii, which not only allowed me to understand more about energy, but also understand what is currently being done. Before I viewed the videos I thought not only Hawaii depends on oil as their major source for energy, but also other states. Thanks to the videos I understand that in other states the dependency on oil is much less than in Hawaii. One of the reasons is because mainland has a variety of alternative sources for energy that are locally produced. Having alternative sources of energy not only reduces the dependency on oil, it also helps reduce the cost (e.g. electricity bill), and even help with keeping a clean environment.
Fortunately, Hawaii has an abundance of almost all of the natural alternative resources for energy. It includes sunlight, water, wind and other sources. Of all the sources the cleanest form is sunlight (solar), and wind. However, the source can be unreliable because sunlight and wind depends on weather. If it happens to be a rainy day then there won’t be sunlight to generate the energy. Same problem also applies to wind energy because if it is not windy then the turbines won’t move and generate the energy.
Even though the alternative sources won’t completely eliminate our dependency on oil, but at least it can reduce the amount we use. Besides using alternative sources of energy, one important factor to reduce our dependency on oil is to use less energy. How do we use less energy? The answer lies in our habit of energy usage; we have always got used to leaving devices on even when we don’t use it. On a daily basis this can sum up to costing a lot of money just for leaving the device on. Therefore, one of the videos stressed to shut off devices that are not in use.
To conclude, I believe these videos are trying to educate people of what we are facing and what our descendants will be facing in the future if nothing is being done. People always complain about our dependency on oil, but complaining is just not enough, actions must be taken in order for changes to happen. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for our state to invest in alternative sources of energy. It might be expensive now to start the facilities (e.g. solar farm/ wind farm), but in the long run it will reduce the dependency on oil and lower the cost. Since our state doesn’t have a super grid, like in the mainland, to deliver energy then our other way is to utilize what our islands have to generate the energy.
No comments:
Post a Comment