8th Lesson

8th lesson has just finished and next up would be the submissions of our Individual Reports and the presentations of our TWC Web page. This lesson was also highlighted by the fact that I had finished my presentation :D.

In this lesson, Professor Singh went through the different sources of energy that we use nowadays. The main topic of discussion was mainly on how energy is used so frivolously these days, and the many efforts undertaken by governments worldwide to adopt more environmentally friendly initiatives in their use. Prof showed us a table titled Energy Sustainability Index Rankings, which ranks countries based on how sustainable their energy exploitation is. I noticed that generally on a whole, most of the developed countries tend to be the ones that place much emphasis on energy sustainability. Yet, there are some anomalies, such as Cameroon, which ranked 11th in the index, compared to the United States at 19th. There was also one more interesting "fact" learnt this lesson: according to a WWF report on sustainability, they claim that if everyone in the world consumes as much as the average American or Singaporean, global oil reserves would run out in 9 years. This came out as a shock to me, though I myself have no idea that an individual living in Singapore would consume so much energy as compared to other countries.

The key takeaway of this lesson would be on how we should try to make energy usage currently more sustainable, and that we should focus our efforts on discovering new sources of energy. The energy supply that we currently have is definitely exhaustible, and if we do not take measures to slow down our use of it, then our resource-rich environment would soon be stripped to the bone. Not only must we make our energy use more sustainable, but we must also attempt to invent and find new sources of energy. The majority of the presentations this lesson, mine included, focused on new technologies that provide for us new sources of energy. The options are limitless; it is just a matter of discovering that option.

I feel that this lesson deserved a 9/10. Many of the issues brought about today are widely discussed, and I've learnt much from these discussions as a result.