With the world facing more and more serious environmental problems day by day, urgent measures are needed if we want to overcome earth’s destruction. It is important for us to care because if the earth is destroyed one day, we perish together with her. The solutions are all around us, it is just a matter of having the strength and political will to actually utilize the solutions. Let’s take a look at some of the solutions.

Wind Power

It has the potential to provide 30% of world’s electricity, hence the need to develop better ways of storing the energy generated with distribution to be done between different states and countries.

Solar

Solar Energy provides more than enough energy to power the world many times over. A need to increase investment in solar cells to produce better models which capture more energy with low production cost is needed.

Tidal

Power from the oceans possesses huge potential for low-carbon energy generation. Efforts to harness such energy have been hampered by difficulty of designing devices that can tolerate harsh ocean conditions.

Combined Heat & Power

Waste heat accounts for 40% of the energy produced by power stations. This energy can be put to good use by installing domestic microgenerators which can be used uo heat up our homes and water.

Super Efficient Houses

An effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from domestic housing is to eco-renovate existing buildings. Germany, through the PassivHaus movement aims to reduce 80-90% emissions through measures such as insulating walls/windows using improved ventilations that do not loose heat.

Electric Cars

Though being infamous for its style and speed, their running costs is 50% those of diesel models. Research suggests that electric cars could act as energy stores for the power grid when not being driven.

2^nd Generation Biofuels

Compared to food crops, agricultural waste shows seal promise for making new generation of fuel. Using new cellulose cracking technologies, waste food is broken down into liquid food. With US venture capitalists investing heavily in these technologies, it won’t be long until this idea becomes a reality. However, careful management of cellulose production will be vital with the increase of global fuel consumption.

Carbon capture

Since renewable energy sources is unable to keep up with world demand for electricity, effective way(s) of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide produced by power stations is one of the most important challenges we face. Though investments in carbon-capture technologies has been slow to pick up, but governments around the world are starting to acknowledge the importance of funding this research, and promising new technologies are already emerging.

Biochar

Another effective way to reduce greenhouse emissions is to sequester carbon as biochar, a charcoal made from burning agricultural waste in the absence of air. Being exceptionally stable, it can be stored underground for hundreds of years without releasing its carbon into the atmosphere -it can also improve the fertility of the soil.

Biogas Stoves

Biogas stoves’, being an option for solution against deforestation, is powered by methane released from rotting organic waste, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. At the moment, China is in the lead by heavily promoting the use of biogas technologies.

Chris Goodall

www.newscientist.com