How We Have Changed Our Environment
On my way out of Denver this afternoon, we climbed heading West. It was an hour or so before sunset. Rush hour was in full swing with freeways packed. From 10,000 feet, the freeways resembled long curving parking lots. However, one thing permeated my entire view: smog.
The Rocky Mountains are in the background. For a moment, Denver resembled Los Angeles for except the mountains are on the wrong side. The quality of our air has been getting worse and worse with the years. Thus, not only increasing the production of energy from renewable sources is important, but so is the recapture of the vast amounts of carbon, and other pollutants we have released into the environment. Recapturing carbon technologies are being developed. Currently, a few electric generation plants pump their carbon back deep underground but it is not enough. More will have to be done along with the continued development of renewable energy technologies or Cleantech. That leads me to an article I read today that made my day.
Bloomberg published an article today based on a report released by the International Energy Agency indicating that two-thirds of the net expansion of electricity supply for 2016 came from renewables. That is 165 Gigawatts of electricity production worldwide (165,000 Million Watts).
- That is 136.3X more than the 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity Dr. Emmett Brown needed to power the DeLorean
- A standard home in the United States uses about 1000 watts of electricity per month (0.001 Million watts). You get the idea. Photovoltaics (commonly known as “PV”, “solar,” or “solar power/panels”) led the way over other renewable forms with over half of the PV systems installed in China.
Thus, there is hope that one day, we will ALL be able to admire the Rocky Mountains without the grey haze as we head West from Denver.
Cheers,
Fernando