Monday, June 1, 2009

The urgent need for Green Energy by Gopal Ganapathy


Today I would like to introduce you to Gopal Ganapathy, the author of a very fine blog entitled Is it true? Amazing facts and Strange discoveries. Mr. Ganapathy writes about everything from a Chinese Cave House to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to, most recently, a post on The Visayan Spotted Deer of the Philippines. Is it true? is an amazing collection of unique posts about unusual subjects.

Today, Mr. Ganapathy has kindly agreed to share his thoughts on Green Energy with us. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.



The urgent need for Green Energy


What is greenhouse effect? Very simple truth. Though solar heat mostly radiates back into the outer space, some of it is retained in the atmosphere itself, a process called the Greenhouse effect. This retained heat is essential for the survival of the Earth as otherwise the average temperature here in our planet would be a chilling minus 18 degrees Celsius. It is this greenhouse effect that provides us a comfortable average temperature of 14 degrees.

Now greenhouse gases are chemical compounds contributing greenhouse effect. They radiate sunlight back into the atmosphere as heat. The three man-made greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the major culprits since the Industrial Revolution in the Western countries caused mainly by fossil fuel combustion, rise in global population and resultant increase in agriculture. While methane concentrations are on the decline, human-made CO2 and nitrous oxide are likely to increase most in the next 100 years. Remember, in climate science, though methane is a more damaging greenhouse gas, its life in the atmosphere is only about 10 years as against 100 years for a molecule of CO2.

But all is not lost. We do have hopes and options. The concept of green energy is fast catching up across the world and several organizations are now actively promoting the concept of clean or green energy as against dirty energy like coal and oil, which affect our health and wealth with their toxic pollution as well as climate changes that we are all now greatly aware of. This green energy concept concentrates on numerous extremely simple options that each one of us can and should adopt. Yes, these involve lifestyle changes and policy changes. Avoidance of the need for new energy plants by energy recycling and also by more efficient buildings is likely to gain acceptance gradually. Fuel economy measures will reduce gasoline consumption dramatically by whopping 43%!!! Evaluation of energy loss in homes can be taken up. The recent stimulus package announced by President Obama offers financial benefits of up to $1500 for adopting home efficiency measures like solar water heaters or photo voltaic cells at 65% less than their cost last year thus making a $20,000 solar installation to cost as little as $6,000. Let us all grab this opportunity and save the Earth by adopting green and clean energy. Probably USA may take the rest of the world into the Green Energy Era where energy is going to be clean and cheap.

The benefits? This green energy will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create new green jobs thereby improving the sagging economy of the nations. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimates a saving of $168 billion in utility expenses as well as creation of about 222,000 new and permanent jobs in various fields and most importantly prevent the release of 262 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, which is equivalent of taking 48 million cars off the road for one full year!!! This will completely avoid new 390 polluting plants from coming up. Imagine how the green earth will shine when this happens. Simple but true.

Source: Google

I'd like to thank Mr. Ganapathy for sharing this information with us ... and I'd like to encourage you to head over to his blog for some very interesting reading.

As always ... I would love to hear from you!