2008 Woodie Awards
The Future of Alternative Energy
Deepika Mehra
Issue date: 10/13/04 Section: Features
On September 29th, in the Smith auditorium, 200 students attended the Honors Enrichment Symposium on the "Future of Alternative Energy." Dr. Graham Walker was the guest speaker who lectured on the topic and talked about the alternatives of preserving the energy.
Dr. Walker started out his discussion by telling the audience that we need to worry about our future and the generations to come. He gave facts of the amount of energy currently being used and how we have limited energy sources such as oil, coal, natural energy, nuclear energy and some alternative energy sources which include biomass, hydroelectric gas, geothermal, wind, solar and tidal energy.
It is strange how many of us don't even think about our environment and future of the energy and its scarcity. It seems as if our society has become ignorant in many ways and it doesn't concern a normal human being about the problems that might concern us in many ways. After the discussion, it seemed as if our future is in dire straits, and there might be some enormous problems if we don't take the necessary precaution.
Dr. Walker said, "There are two reasons why the public at large needs to be informed about these energy issues. The first is that in general, the population at large is unaware that an energy crisis will happen within the next 60 years if nothing is done, and therefore education will make bring this issue to their attention. The second reason is that the public need to be educated about how energy is produced and what alternative we have so that when decisions have to be made they will be able to make intelligent choices, and not be misled by people who have vested interest in the status quo."
Majoring in Chemical Engineering, Joan Bachynsky, sophomore at MC, said, "I thought the symposium was very interesting. I found it surprising that the earth has been predicted to run out of its major energy sources so soon."
According to Dr. Walker, it is estimated that assuming the current use of the energy sources, we would run out of: gas by the year 2030, oil by the year 2010 (optimist estimate 2030), coal by the year 2090 and, Uranium by the year 2010.
Dr. Walker started out his discussion by telling the audience that we need to worry about our future and the generations to come. He gave facts of the amount of energy currently being used and how we have limited energy sources such as oil, coal, natural energy, nuclear energy and some alternative energy sources which include biomass, hydroelectric gas, geothermal, wind, solar and tidal energy.
It is strange how many of us don't even think about our environment and future of the energy and its scarcity. It seems as if our society has become ignorant in many ways and it doesn't concern a normal human being about the problems that might concern us in many ways. After the discussion, it seemed as if our future is in dire straits, and there might be some enormous problems if we don't take the necessary precaution.
Dr. Walker said, "There are two reasons why the public at large needs to be informed about these energy issues. The first is that in general, the population at large is unaware that an energy crisis will happen within the next 60 years if nothing is done, and therefore education will make bring this issue to their attention. The second reason is that the public need to be educated about how energy is produced and what alternative we have so that when decisions have to be made they will be able to make intelligent choices, and not be misled by people who have vested interest in the status quo."
Majoring in Chemical Engineering, Joan Bachynsky, sophomore at MC, said, "I thought the symposium was very interesting. I found it surprising that the earth has been predicted to run out of its major energy sources so soon."
According to Dr. Walker, it is estimated that assuming the current use of the energy sources, we would run out of: gas by the year 2030, oil by the year 2010 (optimist estimate 2030), coal by the year 2090 and, Uranium by the year 2010.