Video from group n° 104

Welcome to the webpage of group 104

The topic we have decided to explore is the following :
This video is dedicated to emphasize the importance of the issue of "depletion of natural resources" mainly oil and gaz in the world by describing its causes and how we can cut off their impacts on the environment. The depletion of natural resources, such as oil and gas, is in front of our door ... If nothing is done, the Earth, Our Earth will die with Us ...

Our paper

The world needs energy ambassadors to help save the planets energy. From outer space the planet Earth looks like a big blue marble. This earth is our home. Just like most homes around the world it takes a lot of energy to run, so we have to take care of it and not waste energy.

We used to switch a button to light on a room, it’s a natural movement in developed countries, but in Botswana ? We often forget to switch the light off when we leave the classroom, and it remains light for hours, what happens in Cambodian countryside ? We used to complain about the high price of the diesel, but when we fill our car with gasoline, do we think about that provides from a fossil energy, and that we will run out of it faster than we think ?

Energy – whatever is it – is non unlimited. We have to find out the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy sources and finally using energy responsibly to make a difference.

Today, we are at a turning point.

The Earth will be soon running out of energy because of our overconsumption. The renewable energies are needed today more than any other days before. If we were not changing our way of consumption, our Earth would die with us …

Every hour, more energy from the sun reaches us than we use in an entire year. Solar energy is used to generate electricity. Solar panels require solar cells, which need to be created from already-existing materials like silicon, but those are not unlimited. Because of this, solar energy usage isn’t as high as it could be, and not so “green” as we said.

However it is a renewable energy and we can create a lot of electricity thanks to it. For instance, photovoltaic panels covering 10,000 square miles more about 10 percent of the land area of Nevada could provide all the electricity used by the United States. But for the moment people don’t use photovoltaic energy because it is too expensive (high costs with the silicon). Nevertheless people are still reluctant to this kind of energy and do not know them well.

So we need to inform people with advertising campaigns and live demonstration to change their habits, and maybe create subventions to help people to buy it and use it. France had this initiative with the tax credit, unfortunately the French government stopped it a year ago. Why ? Budgetary cuts …

Another power we could use is human power. We can work on devices that generate energy from normal human movement. Imagine you can charge your phone when it rustles around in your pocket or when it moves in your hand, this is kinetic energy. We can also use the movement of the people in places overcrowded such as the metro and so on. We can do this by placing panels on the ground which would produce electricity when stepped on (ex : Rue du Lieutenant-Colonel Pelissier, in Toulouse, France).

We also have the invisible powerful force known as the wind. Wind is an energy to be reckoned with. Wind power is a new source of energy. Most wind power is converted to electricity by using giant machines called wind turbines. This is a good substitution of fossil energy. The ability to use this kind of energy for electricity production has been developed recently, and the main problem of this kind of renewable energy is the storage. That’s why it is not strongly developed in the world yet.

So our challenges are first to make people aware of that energy is a renewable energy that can be a good replacement of non-renewable energies, and to invest in research to improve this new way of producing energy.

Beyond the fact that we must try to change habits by teaching from an early age, we must also raises awareness about energy consumption in general. There is far too much waste of energy in modern society. We also need to focus on this problem. All this is done by trying to include sensitivity training. Also create a wide awareness campaign and on top of that create forums in which we show people the functioning of the new energies and how they can save our planet.

The goal is to get people to behave in a more responsible way, that is to say, not to waste energy, and familiarize them with new energy sources to ease the transition that will occur in the years to come.

The COP21 seems to be a great hope for the following decades. But it’s so occur for so many people too …

In a nutshell : COMMUNICATION.