Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Swedish town burns garbage for fuel
Rather more optimistic than most news about the environment, but how encouraging is this? It takes care of two problems at once, waste disposal and the use of fossil fuels, but will it really catch on? Doesn’t it also produce greenhouse gases? Some people say that the search for alternative fuels simply masks the real problem: we are consuming too much. What do you think? With a continual increase in population and industrialization, is this just a drop in the bucket? Or is technology part of the solution rather than the problem? And what about the fact that it seems to have been spurred by a tax on emissions? What do you think of these sorts of environmental laws? Is this the best way to encourage individuals, governments and corporations to be responsible? What about the economic effects?
When it comes to teaching and showing people how to use one’s life efficiently, Swedes are with no doubt the exemplar number ones in doing this. Whether it’s a question of technology, mentality, environment or education, they always know what’s best for both an individual and the society. A great example to prove this can be demonstrated by the Swedish container deposit system. In Sweden, there are deposits on nearly all containers for consumption-ready beverages. Of the aluminium cans and PET bottles affected by the deposit that are sold, 91% and 84% are returned respectively. The return rates for the two glass bottle types are 99% and 90% respectively. That means 1.44 billion (9 out of 10) aluminium cans and PET bottles return each year and become new cans and bottles. And Kristianstad’s gumption is no exception to Swedes’ inventiveness.
ReplyDeleteAll the facts in the article indicate that Kristianstad shows the whole world the right way to go. Kristianstad has halved its fossil fuel use, reduced the city’s carbon dioxide emissions by one-quarter in the last decade, created jobs in the energy sector and decreased its year expenses on heating municipal buildings by $3.8 million. Furthermore it fuels its municipal cars, buses and trucks with biogas fuel, avoiding the need to purchase nearly half a million gallons of diesel or gas each year. Last but not least we have to put emphasis on the fact that even though both natural gas and biogas create emissions when burned, they create them far less than coal and oil do. Kristianstad is aware of this and uses biogas, which is in other words biological waste that in many cases would otherwise decompose in farm fields or landfills and yield no benefit at all, releasing heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. To conclude, I believe that by 2020 the total local emissions will be 40% lower than they were in 1990 and that running the city will require no fossil fuel and produce no emissions at all.
Branislav Skocek IB3
This article talks about one of the most controversial topics in today society. The question of sources and stores, about consumption and next generations’ future is quite being discussed also in contemporary governments.
ReplyDeleteTo talk about disadvantages, the first and probably the worst thing is, that using this renewable source requires very very high financial invests at the beginning. It is much more higher that in cases of using sources from stores. For example the centralized biomass heating system cost $144 million, including constructing a new incineration plant, laying networks of pipes, replacing furnaces and installing generators. This is what dissuades most of governments in decision of accessing this way.
But on the other hand, I see much more advantages in using renewable sources. Probably the most important is the fact, that it is not damaging the environment. Both natural gas and biogas create emissions when burned, but far less than coal and oil do. Another important thing is that after some time that is obviously needed the income cover the expenses. Benefits that are sometimes not sufficiently evaluated are smaller emissions (it reduces the carbon dioxide emissions by one-quarter). For people for who the safety of our planet is important will welcome the evidence that was said by Lennart Erfor: “It’s a much more secure energy supply — we didn’t want to buy oil anymore from the Middle East or Norway,” Next but not least advantage is the efficiency of biogas.
I think that some time from now, it will be necessary to consider using other ways than these days, as far as people know, we still have sources for our needs right now, but some people also today think about new technologies, because next generations will feel the errors of our age as they will have no stores.