Save energy?? Why?? What’s the benefit??

In this world of carbon credits and ever growing needs for energy, a lot of emphasis has been laid on finding new and sustainable sources of energy. The data shows that we have not been able to make much headway in this field. But if you ask me, i’d answer by asking you a very simple question that being, “what’s wrong with saving energy??”, and energy saved means energy created (although the laws of physics won’t call that right since energy can neither be created nor destroyed). Seems a very simple question but i don’t think everyone understands the magnitude behind this question. Let me try and make the picture clearer.

The most common source of electricity on the planet is coal, a jar full of coal that’s about 6 cu.centimeters can power a CFL lamp for one complete year, sounds great right??. But that’s not the situation, in order to power a CFL lamp for one complete year you’d need at least 10 such jars. Here’s why, because out of every unit of electricity produced 9 units get lost in heat loss, transmission loss and other energy losses, sure enough physics hasn’t been kind to us. This cannot be changed at least in the near future, so what can be done??. A lot of simple things. These being, turning your lights, fan, air conditioning, computers etc while moving out of your home. Moving to energy efficient appliances, stop being a couch potato and moving outside for our daily dose of entertainment. I believe the picture is pretty much clear to you now, for every unit of electricity that we save, we are actually saving 10 units of electricity and that could power 1 CFL for 10 years… phew!!!!, sounds amazing right?. So why is it that your computer stays on when you go to sleep? turn that off and go to sleep. 🙂

Jaskirat Singh MBA(ITBM) 2013-2015 @ SCIT