Energy Efficiency
The term "energy efficiency" has two meanings, of which one meaning to the devices used in everyday life and spend a during the work input energy, in order to convert into useful work or some other form of energy.
These devices can be more energy efficient or inefficient, depending on how much input energy is converted into the work or needed different energy. Therefore, the energy-efficient devices are considered those with a high degree of efficiency and low losses in energy transformation.
Examples of this can be found in condensing gas boilers, which have a much higher degree of efficiency in the combustion gas, and therefore greater energy efficiency than conventional gas boilers, converting the chemical energy of fossil fuels into thermal energy.
Another everyday example is the ordinary incandescent bulbs, which spent most of the electricity converted into heat energy, and only a small part of light energy into useful, and therefore it is an energy inefficient device in relation to the so-called "energy saving" light bulbs that consume up to 75% less electricity for the same amount of light energy received.
The second meaning of the concept of energy efficiency is related to the implementation of various measures in the use of all forms of energy, in order to save energy. These may be technical and normative, and mainly those undertaken in a way that does not reduce the achieved level of comfort and standards, but they preferably increase.
The current sources of energy
Today's lifestyles in the world is based on the increasing use of energy, in all its aspects: in the home, at work, on the road, on vacation and the other, all in order to increase comfort and productivity. Humankind now settled most of its energy needs in the easiest and cheapest way possible, in order to achieve the higher profits of energy companies.
For the production of heat and electrical energy is most commonly used fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), which are not renewable, since their creation in the earth's crust take millions of years, and most experts in the field agree that these resources will be exhausted in 200 years of exploitation at the same pace.
The application of fossil fuels is causing a damaging impact on our environment, not only because of the large climatic disturbances caused by global warming, but also because of the rapid disappearance of many plant and animal species, caused by pollution of air, water and soil.
Nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used primarily for electricity generation. However, its application is becoming more controversial, because of the constant danger of a possible adverse impacts on the Earth, the discharge of radioactive material in air, water and land in various incidents in nuclear power plants, such as those at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan.
While it is considered that this type of energy is almost inexhaustible, yet it due to their harmful products in exploitation, not be classified as so-called "clean" energy, so that in many countries insist on the prohibition of its use.
The only clean and renewable source of energy that is used in the world, is a potential energy of water in rivers, which is used to generate electricity by damming rivers and creating artificial lakes, from which the water drop comes through pipelines to the generators in hydroelectric power stations.
New sources of energy
There is less places on the rivers in the world where they can build new hydropower plants, as the growing opposition to their construction because of the potential negative impact on the microclimate in the environment, and because of the relatively high cost of building such power plants. It's investors opted to build a growing number of mini-hydropower plants on small rivers, because they require relatively small investments per unit of power that can be obtained from them.
However, due to more pronounced lack of energy in the world, the expected disappearance of fossil fuels, but also because of their harmful effects on life on Earth and the growing opposition to their replacement with nuclear energy, in the near future these fuels must be replaced with another clean and renewable energy sources, most often of which are in use: solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy.
These energy sources are most readily available to everyone and can be exploited almost all the Earth's vastness. From the standpoint of energy efficiency, all devices that are used to convert renewable energy into another useful form of energy, are absolutely the most efficient, because the input energy that we want to transform is practically free.
Thermal or electrical energy can be obtained from various bio-mass (fuel), which is also a significant possibility of replacing fossil fuels with relatively cleaner energy sources, which have much less negative impact on the environment during their combustion in the process of transformation of energy.
This bio-fuels can be obtained in two ways: a dedicated growing of certain plant species, but also taking advantage of various waste materials of plant origin in agriculture, livestock farming and some industries. Since the emergence of biofuels depends directly from human activities, it can also be regarded as a renewable energy source, as long as these activities there.
It may seem paradoxical, but the greatest cost savings to replace the current, most commonly used energy sources: fossil fuels and nuclear energy, due to investments in new alternative energy sources, is achieved by simultaneous parallel investment in energy savings through various proven methods, and new and modern also.
Why is this so? Because the achieved effects on the basis of energy saving and energy efficiency, can be determined with certainty, that the planned construction of many power plants in fact unnecessary, and that even many of the existing built and dilapidated energy facilities can be closed without having to be replaced with new ones.
Energy savings
Why do we need to save energy? For two main reasons:
1st - Due to decrease the effect of the climate changes on Earth caused by global warming, because the average household each year discharges into the atmosphere about five to six tons of carbon dioxide, and so discharges any of the cars that the household owns.
2nd -Do not save energy is the same as waste of money because the application of some of the only known way of saving on heat and electrical energy in homes, businesses, transportation and government agencies, may save least 1 / 3 all the energy consumed annually in the world. Cash equivalent of savings achieved is at least 400 Euros per year for each household, while reducing emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for about two tons each year.
The most common action taken to save energy and increase energy efficiency are: replacement of non-renewable energy sources with renewable, replacement of inefficient energy consumers with efficient, thermal insulation of buildings by replacement of external windows and doors with new, which has a lower coefficient of heat transfer from the outdoor air to the air in the rooms, while not allowing the penetration of outdoor air through the joints and its movement through the rooms, and installation of energy metering and regulating devices in the consumer and the introduction of the tariff system by distributors in order to stimulate energy consumption reduction.
For the average household, one of the best ways of saving energy is certainly the thermal insulation of buildings with the replacement of external doors and windows, and a gradual transition to transport vehicles, instead of fossil fuels in their engines using electric propulsion.
Electricity in the household, which we use in everyday life can be saved in various ways, for which there is already are plenty recommendations in the world.
One of the most effective ways of saving energy is the production of heat by using the so-called heat pumps, which drive to use electricity, but can in heating systems, to produce two to three times more energy than the drive energy, subtracting the thermal energy of matter in this process used, and these are usually the ambient air, water or land, while the transfer of generated heat energy in the room across the heaters.
Because of the reversibility of this process in devices that take heat energy from these substances, in most cases these devices can be used for cooling buildings in summer period, with no special mounting of other devices, which can be substantial savings in investment.
Depending invested funds in each individual investment to save energy, can be achieved by the facilities in which we live and work, become less and less energy-dependent, and in specific cases can become completely energy independent, and can even have a surplus (mainly electrical ) energy, which stimulated some states, such as purchased from small producers at higher prices than the market price.
When designing and constructing new facilities, mostly provided for housing, can be made and so-called passive solar house, which its design reduce the need for energy, so that the house itself collects and accumulates solar energy for heating purposes, which will bring future job their owners significant annual savings in consumption of other forms of energy.
All these technical and normative measures that can be undertaken with the aim of saving energy and increasing energy efficiency, require a greater investment of state and individuals, so we need to create a worldwide fund to assist the development and implementation of these measures.
The energy crisis and new technologies
The world certainly has more available energy than necessary to cover not only all present but also future energy needs, but they require a substantial investment in finding ways to cheap, clean and safe utilization of various, mainly renewable energy sources.
But for that you need to first of all, for as many countries investing in developing new technologies for the implementation of other alternative energy sources and energy saving, eliminating the impact of international oil companies and their lobbies in the world political factors, as they strive at every opportunity to sabotage any attempts to use new energy sources, where they can not have financial control in order to preserve its present enormous profits.
History remembers the wars that were waged for religious and national conflicts, but the conquest of territory by war often occurred in order to assume a variety of resources and wealth of life: food, water, and strategic raw materials.
Due to the increasing influence on everyday life and to preserve the standards achieved, the energy becomes more main strategic resource in most developed countries. To be able to provide stable to satisfy their energy needs, concealed under the mask of the alleged introduction of democracy or human rights, the world's strongest state activate more and more local wars, because they want to conquer the areas rich in energy resources.
Latest examples of this are the oil-rich Iraq occupation by the United States, to control oil in the Middle East region, overthrow government in Libya by some member countries of NATO, for control of oil resources in North Africa, and the seizure of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija also by NATO forces under UN auspices, solely because of the large reserves of coal and other strategic raw materials which it is rich.
These are war campaigns, to cover war costs and the growing needs of developing countries for oil, have brought a substantial increase in world prices of all petroleum products, which later indirectly affected the price increases and almost all other products, especially food.
Therefore, renewable energy will have in the future become the main sources of energy, because only in this way, winning the war for the sake of energy and other resources become history.
The global economic crisis
At the same time, the current global economic crisis, which is actually just a crisis of liberal capitalism in the developed countries so far. Capital knows no borders and he moved to the country where they can make more profit because of cheaper labor and resources, which shows that the concept of increasing spending to stimulate the cheap credit, completely failed and that it essentially collapsing the capitalist system from within.
Insisting on a permanently increasing of consumption serves to maintain profits in the world's largest companies, which also do not care about moving their factories from developed countries, causing loss of jobs in them. It then creates a crisis of the banking sector, which can no longer collect its receivables from loans granted to households, small and medium businessmen, with the result that the state must give the banks a huge financial resources for their recovery.
These funds are mainly provided by the state tax increase in population or new borrowing from the other banks, and these debts will have to return again, taxpayers, many of whom already barely surviving in the global economic crisis.
To be more absurd, less expensive products from companies that have relocated to other countries with cheaper labor and resources, in the end will not have anyone to sell on the world market, due to the impoverishment of workers in developed countries, because of lost jobs in the factories closed, which will again lead to the closure of factories in these new destinations. Future events will show that the concept of globalization and the global world market, with constantly increasing production, only serving to further enrichment, but also as the richest people in the world, who wish to the faster realization of greater profits, destruction of competition and diversity in the global economy. Does this look like a monopolization of the world market by the world's largest companies? Ask yourself ...
But let's look at it, then who in this vicious circle has the most to gain from the global economic crisis? And of course, only the world's largest bank, behind which is hidden by its founders as owners of the big capital. They are in banks invest their profits in many ways extracted from the world's largest companies, gotten by exploitation of workers around the world, but certainly with the help of money from organized crime, washed in a variety of legal and illegal ways.
One gets the impression that the owners of banks intentionally cause the closure of some of its banks, from which they had previously extracted capital with the various machinations, money to taxpayers through government institutions, increase the capital in other banks. Thus, only a small percentage of people in the world (about 1%), becoming richer while others become poorer.
However, in all this is very important to many already heavily indebted countries, which have the same Worlds Bank gave loans favorably, becoming more indebted, and are now facing bankruptcy, which will eventually have to pay its debts with its property, or territories, or his freedom, or vassal relationship. And if all this seems like the neocolonialism? The answer is again yes.
Let's hope it does, after a period of painful disillusionment and understanding of the nature of capital and globalization of the real aim, result in a change in the behavior of government in most countries in the world, whose new measures in the improve the lives and preserve their economies, will consist in the fact that must respect the fundamental principle of human life on the Earth, that they need to meet the basic needs for food, water, clothing, housing and procreation, and who received all possible savings measures, and that other essential consumer goods must be manufactured quality for long duration.
The problem will be just that the owners of big capital in the world, seek to preserve their interests at any cost, even at the cost of provoking a third world war, as they caused the previous two, which were also created after the world's great economic crisis. However, this new world war, because a large number of countries has the military technology of mass destruction, can cause destruction of all life on Earth.
But do not worry, even though we are not aware of that, the Earth has a great power of regeneration, it will recover itself, by creating new life forms, but with one important difference: people like most intelligent form of life on this planet will cease to exist because they are themselves destroyed and eventually survived will live like in the Stone Age.
We will be happy if in the future do not be an apocalypse, let us hope that sapience will prevail!
