Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
THE ENERGY CHALLENGE: CHEAP,
PLENTIFUL, RELIABLE ENERGY . . .
FOR 7 BILLION PEOPLE
ENERGY AND LIFE
Tell me if this is motivating: This year humanity will use some 560 quadrillion BTU of energy, which av-
erages out to around 215,000 BTU per person per day—and some people have access to less than 25,000
BTU per day.
1
No?
Unfortunately, discussions of energy are often extremely abstract and technical, causing us not to think
about energy in a very personal, meaningful way. Before I studied energy professionally, I thought of it
mostly when I filled up my car, when I paid my power bill, and when I followed controversies about al-
legedly bad things the energy industry (usually the fossil fuel industry) was doing.
But the reality is that energy affects nearly every aspect of life. Almost nothing matters more to our lives,
the lives of those you care about, and the lives of billions of others around the world than the existence of
cheap, plentiful, reliable energy. To give you a sense of what I mean, here's a story from The Gambia about
what electricity means to a woman having a child.
THE GAMBIA
June 2006
At 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, I was startled when the lights came on; the lights never came on
after 2 p.m. on the weekends. The adrenaline really kicked in when I was invited to observe an emer-
gency cesarean section—a first for me. When the infant emerged I felt my heart racing from excitement
and awe!
But no matter how many times the technician suctioned out the nose and mouth, the infant did not
utter a sound. After twenty five minutes the technician and nurse both gave up. The surgeon later ex-
