Question

How can we move to a more energy efficient society? Taking Small Island Developing States into consideration.

Answer 1

I think that we should exploit our natural resources and invest in those which are relatively cheap and simple for a start. Some common examples include solar energy and wind energy. Besides, islands are surrounded by the sea, exploiting the energy generated by the waves could also be considered. Then we could move to the various generations of biofuels.

The main idea here is green energy - it is efficient and sustainable.

Answer 2

yeah right thanks Kayne =) okay what else do you propose, forget about islands.

Answer 3

If we forget about the island then I think that we can afford to think big ^^ I mean in terms of investment. One of the trend of this new era is algal biofuel. I would specifically talk about microalgae. They are fascinating organisms. These organisms are being used for carbon capture and they are subsequently being used to produce bioethanol and biodiesel. I think that they are the source of efficient and sustainable energy. They do not compete with food crops and can be cultivated in bioreactors, they have a faster growth rate than plants among others. For instance, a factory carbon emissions could be directed to a bioreactor for the growth of the microalgae and then the latter could be further processed to produce biodiesel (biodiesel has been found to be more efficient than bioethanol because it provides 36% more energy than bioethanol can provide). With our dwindling oil reserve, the algal technology seems to be the way to an efficient and sustainable energy society.

What are your views @Ladybird12?

Answer 4

What you are saying here kayne, i totally agree with you. using algae as a source for biofuel is promising for small islands developing states (SIDS) since they are surrounded by the sea. i also thought about using ethanol (from cane/beetroot for example) as biofuel... Again, narrowing the discussion to SIDS, what else do u suggest me?
Okay lets think about the properties of SIDS with no natural resource (e.g. no oil and rely mainly on human resource), relies on imports mainly, isolated in an ocean of water....

Answer 5

Well, personally, I wouldn't recommend that 'cause we are already talking about small islands where land maybe a limited "resource". I'm saying that 'cause there is a population growth across the world; so, most of the land would be used for residential area or for food crops purposes among others. So, you can see here considering those kind of crops would not be a good idea. Plus, like I said biodiesel is better than bioethanol. Moreover, what's good with biodiesel is that you don't have to modify the engines, it's viscosity is pretty much close to that of diesel - no big change as you can see.

Even if the islands are surrounded by sea water, it doesn't mean that they would use the algae floating around. They will have to look for the algae which would give the larger amount of biodiesel/biofuel. Then they would have to isolate that particular algae, cultivate the latter and then extract the targeted molecule which would be lipids for biodiesel. So, this would be carried in a bioreactor which could use the readily available sea water which should undergo a filtering process to avoid contamination.

Apart from that, solar energy and wind energy would be great. I also read couple of weeks ago about scientists working on "algal light bulb". I'll try to look for it and send it to you asap.

Answer 6

sure thing. your points are valuable, i'll bear them in mind. thank you =)

Answer 7

You're welcome ;)

Check out the following: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/glowinthedark-plants-a-step-closer-as-avatars-seeds-bear-fruit-20140117-30zhe.html#ixzz2rVRZ0XgI

http://www.miket.co.uk/images/Latro.pdf

http://www.dvice.com/2013-5-10/houseplants-solar-cells-tomorrow

Answer 8

okay i will ^_^