Unsustainable Energy Production and Daily Practices

Hazimi Ismail Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Shah Alam

In the current harsh environment, everyone starts to debate and worry of the earth s future. The energy consumption policy that we have now seems in depletion crisis and in the same time produce pollutant effects to the environment. In my point of view, the effort to educate people about the pollution and fossil fuel exhaustion effect does not give a huge impact to the world. Since I was in primary school, the essay about the pollution and renewable energy was one of the favorite topics either in Malay language or English subject. However, the knowledge is not everything to start the action. People know the catastrophic effect caused by the pollution and energy depletion, but how many of them start to take the action? Plus, the civilian are not the big factor in this problem, but the industrialists are the key one who needs to overcome this problem. One of the biggest pollutant activities is energy generation. Energy cannot be produced nor to be destroyed, but it can be transformed to different forms. Every activity we do needs energy, even during sleeping. Energy can be generated from many resources, fossil fuels, sun light, wind, wave and others. Even the solar is the highest energy capacity, but the humans prefer the fossil fuel because of its efficiency and profitability. In consequences, fossil fuels are unsustainable and hazardous to the environment. Coal, is one of the fossil fuels that is favorable to be used in generating electricity. However, it is not the best one to be used. First reason is, it is unsustainable and the second one is it affects the environment. The coal is a combustible black rock composed mainly of carbon and hydrocarbon. It takes hundred million of years to form the coal, which is based on the dead plants. But to consume all the coals available on earth, we just need a few hundred years. In Malaysia, over 58% of energy source used in electricity generation is natural gas. The main ingredient of the natural gas is methane. The remains of plants and animal in millions of years ago decayed and built up in thick layers. Over time, the sand and silt changed to rock and covered these decays. Pressure and heat had changed these elements into coal, oil and natural gas. Similar to the coal, the production of the natural gas needs millions years but the exhaustion of this source just need a hundred years. In term of pollution, the natural gas is not that hazardous compared to the coal but still it results green house effect due to the carbon dioxide emission. The third unsustainable energy source is oil or petroleum. As we know, most of vehicles are using petroleum to drive the motion. The sudden rise in oil s price gave the economic chaos to all over the world, like what happened in 2007 and 2008. The people are too dependent on the oil, especially in the transportation. The creation or production of oil is quietly similar to the natural gas, but it exists in different physical state. The oil is formed of dead plants and animals in hundred millions of years ago. Obviously, it is not sustainable and renewable, same as coal and natural gas. In the same way, it also pollutes the environment, due to the carbon dioxide emission. All 3 energy sources above are categorized as fossil fuels. Fossil, as I know is formed from the remains of dead plants and animals in hundred million years ago. The cycle of the energy cannot be met if those 3 sources can be completely consumed in just a hundred years. To replace them, we have to find another energy sources that can generated in lesser time to meet the demand capacity. We can use biomass as example. The biomass material can be taken from the plants wastes, animals wastes or our wastes. The biomass will sustain as long as the lives on the earth produce wastes. In our country, this solution is still in early stage. There are a few small plants using the biomass in our country, but their electrical generation capacity is still low. In environmental aspect, the biomass also cannot overcome 1

the pollution issue. At least, this type of energy source is sustainable and practical to be used rather than risky solution such as nuclear power plant. In my opinion, I do not suggest to use the biomass as it does not overwhelm the pollution issue. We have to consider the sustainability and also the environmental effects. The sun radiation in our country is almost every day in a year, but the problem of it is we have the cloudy sky and wet season. Between the solar, wind, wave and any other natural sustainable sources, based on my tiny knowledge I think the wave is the most potential source to our country. We have long coast in every state of Malaysia, and the most important one is we have the coastal erosion issue in Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak. I think this plan can produce 2in1 solution for these problems. If we succeed, the beach can be preserved and the energy can be generated freely, excluding construction and maintenance costs. In our daily life, almost of us do not realize with some minor action, we also contribute to the excessive consumption of energy. Every day, we commute to the destination by car, motorcycles and other personal transport. Even worse, if the people in the same neighborhood go to the same destination but going there by different vehicle is such a waste. Some years ago, our government promoted the Kongsi Kenderaan campaign where the Malaysians were encouraged to share or give a ride to the same destination. But it was found failed, and not efficient. Moreover the vehicle demand will decline and resulting the economic failure. In the other hand, the commute infrastructure such as light train transit, bus, and other public transports should be improved and modified. The public transports available are not sufficient to fulfill all the demand. The frequent delays in public transports schedule give negative perspective to the people to use them. I wonder why we different compared to developed countries such as Britain, US and Japan. Their people favor to use public transports rather than personal vehicles. In my situation, what I can do is to go to the campus everyday with my housemate. Let say today we use my motorcycle and tomorrow we will use his motorcycle. I get the personal money saving, the earth gets energy saving. How great it is. Based on my observation in Mechanical Engineering Faculty of UiTM, most of male students come to class by riding the motorcycles and cars with their friends. That is a good indication to the people outside and perhaps the people outside can do the same. Come on people; let s take the first action to help the earth to sustain its nature and environment.