Thursday, June 19, 2014

Electrifying the world: Does it matter and how will it be done?

Hello! My name is Mahmoud Ataya and I am an electrical engineering student. I care a lot about electrical engineering not just as a job but as a social issue. There are a lot of people in the world who do not have electricity. This is really bad because electricity is an important feature of modern life. Without it, one cannot be on par with the rest of humanity. Furthermore it is an issue because there is not a universal idea about how to get electricity to all the people in the world. This means that humanity must get together to solve this problem but first we have to find out a smart way of doing it that we can all agree upon. In this blog, I will explore different ideas about how to provide electricity to the people of the world. I will talk about their individual benefits and detriments. I will look at places where they were used and analyze how effective they were at solving the problems that they were meant to solve.

First though we have to establish the importance of solving the world's problems with electricity. There are some people who do not think that everyone in the world needs to have electricity. Some of these people believe that it is not possible to build the infrastructure to give everyone electricity so that is why they do not want to do it. Others think that it is chauvinism to want to give everyone access to electricity. The bottom line is that we can do it because we have the technology and if people do not want to use electricity, that should be their choice, but they should also have the choice to use it if they want. Therefore making electricity available to everyone does not disrupt their way of life because they can choose if they want to use it or not. Look at the Amish for example.

Electricity is therefore an important part of modern life. It powers pretty much every element of modern life at at least some stage. The major aspects of modern life such as mobile technologies, computers, internet connections, etc. are powered by electricity. So are the best medical technologies like defibrillators and diagnostic tools. The modern conveniences of life are fueled by electricity like microwave ovens. Therefore access to electricity is necessary for everyone if they are going to partake in modern life and its conveniences. It is therefore a universal human concern to provide electricity to all of humanity much like it was a universal human concern to cure certain diseases or feed humanity.


However, there exist many ideas about how to provide electricity to the people. The three remaining blog posts for this blog will explore the ways in which researchers have thought to provide electricity to the people. These include local and regional ideas, ideas fueled by fossil fuels and ideas that are from renewable energy, and ideas that are free market and ideas that are public sector. After examining the pros and cons of each, there may be a clear winner as to the best way for humanity to get behind a singular method and work together to provide electricity to everyone on planet earth.

1 comment:

  1. Mahmoud
    Nice post. Shortage of electricity is the biggest issue ,poor ( developing countries) are facing. It is really sad that when we talk about the ways to produce cleaner or cheaper electricity , there are some places where people are out of power for twelve hours a day. (imagine no power at all for twelve hours a day when it is over 100 degrees outside). India is famous for blackouts. The infrastructure is old and that is leading to high cost of electricity (twice or some cases more than twice than the cost it should be). And some of these countries are blessed with so much natural resources such water natural gas and coal. Although coal because of the emission of greenhouse gases is very infamous. I agree the electrical engineers are morally responsible of finding the solution of this problem.

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