Recently, towards the end of the 20th century, the climb has been dramatic. Fishermen running their boats on the more expensive fuel find their profit margin dwindling, and suffer great loss if there is little or no catch. The French fishermen went on strike, blockade the port with their boats.
What can we do in our small part to reduce the impact? Here in Singapore, office workers are leaving their cars parked at home, and taking the Mass Rapid Transport Systems, such as the trains and buses. Many with the addiction to big cars are feeling the pinch in their wallets, switching to smaller ones which give more mileage per litre of petrol. Car manufacturers are making the engines smaller, and the body with lighter material for fuel economy. Cars running on motorcycle engines of less than 800 cc capacity is selling like hot cakes, while the hugh 2 litre engine cars are being left on the showrooms for dust to collect.
People are turning to energy-saving lamps, instead of the traditional light-bulbs, the new technology bulbs consume the energy of 20 watt to give luminance of 100 watts. Air conditioners are turning to the Inverter system, where the regulation of temperature is by a proportional controlled electronic chip, that varies the speed and load of the compressor proportional to the temperature deviation between the set point and the measured value.
Mass Rapid Transport system, such as the Subway trains run on electricity. This electrical energy is cheaper than the direct oil fired machines, because the energy is multi-sourced. The turbines are running on Natural Gas supplied by pipelines from the Oil fields of East of the Malaysian Peninsula, and Indonesia. There is direct gas fired turbines and the steam turbines from gas fired boilers. However this source of energy is also mounting its price in relation to the price of Crude Oil. Many people, include businessman in Hong Kong takes the underground trains, and they do not feel any loss of self esteem, as this is the part of their lives. So taking public transport is a quick solution to the rising oil price.
Working from home is also a good thing to do, in a Cosmopolitan city, one has to travel to work and be caught in the traffic jams, the parking fees, and the associated cost of maintenance, insurance and tax on the ownership of a vehicle. With a Virtual Private Network (VPN) one can work from home without having to leave and work in a office with air-conditioning, bright lights and energy consumption. Run the fans instead of the air conditioner helps the save Mega watts of energy.
Please tell us your take on how you can cope with the rising oil prices, and be rewarded with 100 MVPs.
Street Smart
Tijit Pte Ltd
Motto: Digital is our name : Portable is our game
Tijit provides service and supply to Marine Shipping Industry both here in Singapore and abroad focused on portable instruments.
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Hello everyone,
Very nice comment from Trollslayer! Good thinking there!
I would like only to add, that the future of the alternative energy is not only solar photovoltaic and solar thermal, but is would be a combination of many sources. And the northern countries also have their alternative sources (geothermal energy, wind power for example).
About the change in peoples’ life – I think that the main thing, that have to change is the transportation. There are many alternatives of the normal cars and their polluting engines. People have invented electric cars, cars, that run on compressed air and others. For now the main problem is their price and the fact, that they have worse parameters than the normal petrol-driven cars. But this is gonna change in the near future.
Of course, there is also an alternative – people, who think that it’s more important to save money on gas, than the parameters should buy these vehicles.
There are also conversion kits available, so that one can transform his petrol car in electric eco-vehicle. But for now – there are not many companies that are offering this service!(maybe a free niche).
I’m optimistic about the future of the alternative sources of energy – coal and petroleum sources will be replaced by them. We have the technology, we have the resources, all we need is more people, who think in the same way. Don’t expect help from the governments!
It’s a matter of time!
Dieman;
Nowadays, almost everything is made from the Downstream Natural Gas. Such as Nylon, or Poly Utherene, or PVC as plastic bags. Even the roads are paved with Bitumen, a byproduct from the Petroleum Refineries.
For an alternative source of supply to replace the Oil and Gas it has to satisfy all the different application, distribution and delivery. For example, wind power, has to be applicable to run the vehicles on the road. To generate sufficient replacable wind power by windmills, there has to be a very large area where the winds are strongly blowing through, and these generators are to be linked into the Power Grid.
Just two days ago, I came back from a Marinetime Exhibition in Hamburg, Germany. I saw a company proposing a wind sail to help the ship save energy, looks like we are going back to the sail ships. But the sails are only used as assistance to the Diesel Engined propulsion ship.
The future, as I may be bold to predict, will be going towards this form of transportation, by natural means. Like using the rivers for transportaion, or the Mass Transportation System, the Bullet Train or electrical motor vehicles. Soon electrical energy can be transportable by electromagnetic beaming, or microwave beam.
Solar energy has its limitation, in places where there is no sunlight, or in time of darkness, the energy source is disrupted. But it will not be interrupted if you place a solar panel on the sun side of the moon, or in Outer space, and beam the energy back to Earth.
Ocean waves generator is another source of energy for those near the roaring sea. Geothermal energy is for those around the underground hot springs and volcanic activity.
But there is one guy I heard saying some thirty years ago, that we can tap electrical energy from the trees.
Thank you.
Street
Tijit Pte Ltd
Motto: Digital is our name : Portable is our game
Tijit provides service and supply to Marine Shipping Industry both here in Singapore and abroad focused on portable instruments.
We provide Customer Service for...
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Hello again Street Smart –
Almost everything have alternative – plastics can be recycled, clothes also in some level (there also fully natural clothes, made of wool or cotton). I agree about the Pharmacy-stuff and sports.
Nylon and poly-urethane may be replaced also….
There are many ways to manage with this petrol-problem. It just needs more time. Technology develops at high levels now, so I’m optimist.
I just would like to share with you – most of the information I got on this theme is from www.ecogeek.org
There guys have great passion with preserving the environment, so the site has lots and lots of quality information.
This is just my point of view.
If oil price are soaring let them soar, we switch to cycle, we will go by bus. We will try to use hydrogen technology for vehicle. So no need of petrol. We should go walking for short distance.
This way we can reduce our petro cost.