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Sony Pudasaini
Bette Petrides
EN 101
11/22/15
The Global Energy Crisis and its Solutions
Nepal, a small landlocked country has been suffering from economic crisis due to blockade by
India since September 20, 2015. India has been retaliating against Nepal when it finally passed
its new constitution after seven years. Almost all the necessary materials come to Nepal from
Indian borders. However, soon after the approval of new constitution in Nepal, trucks carrying
fuels and other goods got stopped across the borders. Officially there is no blockade, and India
says truckers are simply afraid to enter Nepal and end up as victims of the violence. But Nepal's
government says Indian security personnel are not allowing cargo trucks to cross the border
(Basnet and Naqvi).This kind of strike across the borders has resulted in fuel crisis in Nepal.
Thus, there has been shortage of essential goods, such as foods, medicines, gasolines, and
cooking fuels (Basnet and Naqvi). People of Nepal are suffering badly especially due to fuel
crisis. Thus fossil fuels have become the important part of peoples lives these days.
When the production of energy becomes less than peoples demand in the world, this situation is
called global energy crisis. In this twenty first century, people are being more dependent in
nonrenewable energies along with the invention of science and technologies. Most of the
technologies that are invented require some kind of energy, so there has been a continuous use of
fossil fuels, such as gas, coal, and oil, day by day. This kind of use of nonrenewable energies

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than renewable energies may result in energy crisis in the future. In order to solve problems that
may be created due to such crisis, scientist and researchers invent various alternative sources to
generate energies.
There are many reasons for the global energy crisis. The main reason is the consumption of
nonrenewable energy sources than renewable. Only 10.6 % of renewable energy is used in the
world (Fig 1). People nowadays use energy for almost every activity they do, such as, cooking,
heating, bathing with hot water, washing clothes, and watching TV (The Energy Crisis). The
other reason is population growth. In modern day century, from 1950 to 2050, the world
population is estimated to grow from 2.5 billion to 9.3 billion an increase of almost 3 times.
Currently, the planets human population is doubling about every 39 years. By 2050, the U.S.
population alone will have increased the equivalent of adding four more states the size of
California. It took 10,000 generations to reach a world population of 2 billion in 1930, while it
will only take us a decade in the 1990s to produce around 1.5 billion more! Not to mention all
the environmental and humanitarian losses this overpopulation problem is causing (Alternative
Energy). The other factor is the unnecessary use of energy by wealthy people. People who make
more money spend more amount of energy in comparison with the people who have less income
(Buchan 21). Buchan also says, In Chinas cities, rising incomes have raised energies demand,
as newly ways off city dwellers have treated themselves to cars and domestics appliances. In
contrast to city residents in OECD countries, whose energy consumption is less than those living
in the countryside; Chinas urbanities consume more energy than rural Chinese, for the simple
reason that they are much richer.

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Fig.1: World energy use by fuel source.

Key

World

Energy

Statistics,

p.6.

Office

for

Economic

Co-operation

and

Development/International Energy Agency (2006).

Lack of energy in the world might make the peoples lives hard as they are completely dependent
on energy for their daily activities. Firstly, there will be the increase in the price of fossil fuels in
the world (Buchan 196). If the price of fuels increases, everything in a country will have higher
prices too. It may result in war too. As Paul Roberts, an energy industry writer, explains,

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Competition for remaining oil supplies would intensify, potentially leading to a new kind of
political conflict: the energy war (The Energy Crisis). If human beings continuously use
energy without any limitations, there will be no energies left for our future generations. Thus, it
is necessary that public and policymakers consider energy crisis as an important issue which
needs to be solved.
In order to save energy for future generations, the world should reduce dependence on
nonrenewable resources. Instead of nonrenewable resources, renewable resources can be utilized.
Nowadays, many technologies have been invented that use renewable energies, such as, solar,
wind and steam. Also there are different new inventions these days that make lighting controls
which help to save huge amount of energy. Preset lighting controls, slide lighting, touch
dimmers, integrated lighting controls are few of the lighting controls that can help to conserve
energy and reduce overall lighting costs. Moreover, traditional bulbs which consume more
energy can be replaced with CFLs and LCDs. They consume much more less watts of
electricity and also last longer than traditional bulbs. If millions of people across the globe use
LEDs and CFLs for residential and commercial purposes, the demand for energy can go down
and an energy crisis can be averted. Furthermore, cars are considered to be the main reason for
the shortage of fuel in future, so there has been an invention of electric and hybrid cars. Todays
buyers believe their all-purpose, powerful SUVs work best with their active lifestyle, so the
market has responded by providing diesels, hybrids and flex-fuel engines as options for beating
the high price of gasoline. Thanks to improved technologies that produce better gas mileage, the

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SUV, or sport/ute, meets many personal transportation needs, hauling both people and cargo,
while maintaining a perceived quality of life (A. Anderson and J. Anderson 5).

Because of the shortage of energy in near future, human beings have to change their life styles.
The way of living has been changed than past few years, and it will still continue to change. As
fossils fuels are getting less in amount scientists are searching better ways to solve that problem
that may occur due to fuel crisis in coming years. They consider solar energy to be the best
renewable energy that can be used in order to solve the problem of energy crisis. According to
Seimens Solar, Production of PV cells and modules increased threefold from 40MW in 1990 to
about 129 MW in 1998. Worldwide sales have been increasing at an average rate of about 15%
every year during the last decade. We believe that there is a realistic possibility for the market to
continue to grow at about a 15% rate into the next decade. At this rate, the world production
capacity would be 1000 MW by 2010, and photovoltaics could be a $5 billion industry.
(Alternative Energy). Scientists are inventing many technologies in order to save energy for
future use. Those technologies do not require any fossil fuels at all. Domestic hot water (DHW)
application is one of the inventions that do not need fossil fuels to use. Every day, people use hot
water to take shower in most of the developed countries like, US, Canada, and Australia, wasting
a lot of non-renewable energy. If DHW is used in every house, it will be less expensive and it of
will also help in saving lots of non-renewable energies. DHW applications run with solar energy
making them less costly. Initially it may be costly as more equipment is required in order to fix
it. Nevertheless, after fixing it at home, one does not have to worry about the expense made due
to the use of energy (Plante 123). Similarly, Sun Stash Portable Solar Power Charger has been

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discovered these days. It can be used for charging any electrical devices, like cell phones,
laptops, and computers. It works with the energy of sun light. It can also be carried wherever we
go as it is portable. A completely charged Sun Stash Portable Solar Power Charger carries 60W
charge. One can use it even in the places where there is no electricity supply. It is designed to
supply emergency backup power for ones electrical devices. Furthermore, solar water boats are
becoming widely used nowadays. Before the invention of solar boats, electric boats were used
that need fuels to run. The fair of those boats seem to be more costly as the price of fuel is more.
Those boats were one of the reasons to pollute the environment. Nonetheless, solar boats do not
pollute the environment at all as they run with the solar power.
As human beings are completely dependent on fossil fuels these days, it is certain that there will
be no fuel left in the coming years. Therefore, in order to avoid such situation, scientists and
researchers are trying hard to invent different kinds of equipment that do not need any fossil
fuels to run. Awareness of public would be the first way to solve the future energy crisis. They
can use energy wisely and in a proper way. Second way would be the invention of new
technology by scientists. They are developing most of the machines that runs with the rays of
sun, that is, solar energy. New inventions, such as domestic hot water appliances, sun stash
portable charger, and solar electric boats are the perfect examples of the solar equipment. They
are invented in order to replace the use of fossil fuels. Solar power has become the best
alternative source of energy in modern days. Also, their efficiency and reasonable price
encourage consumers to use them. Only if the world manages to use energy in a proper way, will
there be no energy crisis in coming years.

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Works Citied

Anderson, Curtis D., and Judy Anderson. Electric And Hybrid Cars: A History. Jefferson, N.C.:
Mcfarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010. ebook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 29 Nov.
2015.
Bahadur, Post and Naqvi, Muneeza. Anti-India Anger in Nepal as Essential Supplies Dry up.
The Big Story. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.

Buchan, David. Rough Guide to the Energy Crisis. : Rough Guides, 2011. Ebook Library. Web.
29 Nov. 2015.

Plante, Russell H. Solar Energy, Photovoltaics, and Domestic Hot Water a Technical and
Economic Guide for Project Planners, Builders, and Property Owners. San Diego, CA:
Academic, 2014. Print.

"The Energy Crisis." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

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Transition Energy. Transition from Non-Renewable Energy to Sustainable Energy. Web. 29

Nov. 2015.

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