TWC Week 9 (Session 8)

TWC Week 9 (Session 8)

Brief Overview/Summary of the themes/topics addressed during the session

•   Interesting Observations and Ideas (ideas and concepts that captured your attention)

•   Key Take Away Points (the 2 or 3 key messages from the session that you intend to keep in mind going forward)

•   Issues for Further Discussion (stuff you wish had been considered or given more air-time in class – and why)

•   Personal Ratings for Session (how you would rate the session on a scale of 0 to 10. Feel free to be as subjective as you like in your assessment)

This week's lecture further emphasized the urgent need to solve our energy issue as rising energy consumption is increasingly becoming unsustainable. Will non-renewable fossil fuels forming the bulk of our energy sources, it will not be long before we run out of them. An interesting observation to note would be the heavy reliance on fossil fuels in developing countries, while developed countries are slowly making the switch. With clean energy technology in its infancy, it definitely comes with a high cost. With developing countries being unable to afford the switch to it, would the clean energy revolution drive a greater divide between the richer and poor nations?

A key takeaway point to note was that renewable energy sources like solar power as well as wind energy are largely under-utilized. As such, the trends show that increased investment in clean energy could lead to a solution for our energy concerns. The only issue is why countries seem to be slow to adopt it. The lack of awareness and the uncertainty of a clean energy market seems to be one of the major reasons banks are unwilling to finance such projects. With increasing calls for a switch to renewable energy sources as well as our energy crisis becoming more apparent, there's hope that things will change in the near future.

Another point would be the potential of the clean energy market. A graph in the lecture slides showing the investments and corresponding growths by different countries in the clean energy market shows large profits can be made from this new developing market sector. As such, we can expect to see technological advancements with regard to clean energy.

An issue for further discussion would be for the poorer developing countries, would a switch to more expensive clean energy be worth the investment currently, rather than on developing infrastructure and other areas of the economy instead?

Ratings: 8/10