Improve Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

It is quite evident that nations have not given much attention to the importance of energy conservation and efficiency from the past years. While world’s energy consumption has continued to increase over the years, the policies on energy efficiency and sustainability are often ineffectual and not properly implemented. And since energy is required for economic growth, it is just essential to have sustainable clean energy and improved energy efficiency. 

Energy efficiency is defined by World Energy Council (WEC) as the overall changes due to reduction of energy usage for a given service or level of activity. But it does not necessarily mean that it is only because of technical changes, it can also be the result of a better organization and management or improved economic efficiency in the sector. 

But really, how can we achieve improved energy efficiency?

By lowering or decreasing our energy consumption through effective energy policies and efficient technologies we can improve our energy efficiency. Since for every product/service produced there is an equivalent energy usage, the less energy consumed the higher the energy efficiency. Therefore, improved energy efficiency will result in improvement of production, total costs reduction and eventually—improvement of our economy.

On the other hand having improved energy efficiency is not enough for almost 7 billion people around the world. Energy problem couldn’t be resolve without both energy efficiency and sufficiency. Although it is possible for every nation to conserve energy, if the resources can’t support our present energy needs and of the future generation, then we can say sustainability is way too far achievable. As the term itself defines, sustainability is the ability to meet long term sustenance whether it is for individual needs or for a global scale. It is meeting the needs within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems without risking the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 

There are options given such as the explorations on solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy. Sounds promising but still are not the best sources for the sustainable energy we want for our future. Aside from being capital intensive there is still the underlying question of environmental impact and seasonal factors. These renewable sources do not totally eliminate the burning of fossil fuels though known as clean energy. The only known renewable sources that generally meet this are biomass and burning of wastes such as biosphere technology.