Growing Energy Consumption

Like food and water, energy is a fundamental human need. At the most basic level, we use energy to keep us warm and to prepare the food that sustains us. We have grown dependent on energy to plant and harvest our crops, to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the sununer, to provide light at night, to transport us from one place to another, and to run the factories and stores that provide us with important goods and services. The oil and natural gas price shocks of 2004-2005 serve as sharp reminders of our overall vulnerability to supply shocks, whether due to supply manipulations (producer cutbacks or terrorist activities) or natural disasters. 

Current energy-use projections suggest a continued reliance on fossil fuels and assume little or no penetration of hydrogen options. But because these forecasts are often just based on current trends, they also are inevitably wrong. They fail to consider as yet undiscovered technologies or the effects of possible future geopolitical events, such as a 

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Utilities offered financial incentives to customers to reduce energy consumption because it was less expensive than constructing new power plants to meet the growing demand for electricity. 

From various U.S. DOE sources, projections have been made that the worldwide annual energy consumption in 2020 could be 75 percent higher than it was in 1995. The combined use of fossil fuels is projected to grow faster from 1995 to 2020 than it did from 1970 to 1995. Natural gas is expected to account for 30 percent of world electricity by 2020, compared to 16 percent in 1996. 

NG is expected to be the fastest growing component of global primary energy consumption. Consumption of NG is projected to increase by an average of 2.8% annually from 2001 to 2025, compared with projected annual growth rates of 1.8% for oil consumption and 1.5% for coal (Demirbas, 2006b). 

Geothermal energy is a rapidly growing energy resource. In the year 2000, it accounted for 0.25% of the annual world-wide energy consumption. Exploitation of geothermal resources is generally far less a cause of pollution than fossil-fuel combustion. It has, however, some adverse local effects on the environment, includ-... 

In this section, we describe the mechanical properties of a class of materials that continues to grow in terms of use in structural applications. As issues related to energy consumption and global warming continue to increase demands for lightweight, recyclable materials, the development of new polymers and the characterization of recycled polymers will continue to dominate research and development efforts in this area. 

The key industry drivers are based mainly on cost reduction, reduced energy consumption, and environmental issues. The main components of economy where UV/EB technology has been growing are ... 

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