Energy literally drives our society, it can be found in almost everything we do. Imagine a day without energy. Getting up in the morning “well if you get up at all because the alarm clock works on electricity” the first things you do will require energy. Think about switching on the light, taking a shower, or a shave. Coming down to the living room you can not follow the morning news on the telly or radio and your morning cup of coffee is out of the question. Driving to work with a car or public transport will also not be possible, walking or cycling isn’t always an option because of the distances usually traveled to work. And it doesn’t stop there, the food and products we buy are produced using energy. To cook your food energy is required. A whole report can be written only to describe the energy usage in all of the products and actions, a person in the western society consumes.
Energy it self can be seen as a good thing, if human society uses energy responsible it will cause little harm to themselves and there surrounding’s. But unfortunately in the way that we produce and abuse our energy resources, we also abuse and destroy our common body the Earth. Extracting energy sources like fossil fuels are probably the most harmful, these fuels are:
• Oil
• Coal
• Gas
• Uranium
From this story we can conclude that energy has found its way into the fabric of our society, just look around the room and try to find a product that did not use some kind of energy or an oil based material in his construction. In this section we will look into the world of energy, and take you on a journey trough electricity cables over oceans and trough high pressure pipelines.
Consumers
Energy consumption is not distributed evenly of the globe, instead curtain areas seem to consume a lot more than others. This depend on population and the degree of development. Street lighting at night can give a good representative picture of where population and development come together to form energy guzzling societies.
Example
To give an example of our addiction to energy in the picture to the right there are twelve electric appliances hidden within small confined space. Try to find out which function all appliances have and if they are really needed or just luxury.
