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https://youtu.be/S03Wuh8Ndtk

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Chip em animais São José dos Campos

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Aplicativo. Júlio César Fonseca, da empresa Panorama, é o desenvolvedor do sistema do aplicativo que vai monitorar animais em São José

Foto: /Rogério Marques / OVALE

Aplicativo MyTrackPet foi doado para a Prefeitura de São José por tempo vitalício e vai ser aplicado em animais do Centro de Controle Zoonoses até o final do mês de novembro

Danilo [email protected]_
São José dos Campos

A Prefeitura de São José dos Campos começou a testar o cadastro de animais do CCZ (Centro de Controle de Zoonoses) no aplicativo MyTrackPet para monitorar animais por meio de chip ainda este mês.

O aplicativo foi uma doação da empresa Panorama Sistemas Integrados, com sede na cidade, através da lei de incentivo a inovação e tecnologia, que regula a permissão do município para receber doações.

O acordo prevê uso vitalício pela administração, que vai abrir licitação para compra do microchip. "Se seu animal foi furtado, você faz o registro na plataforma como se fosse um boletim de ocorrência, um alerta será gerado para o centro de zonooses com a informação", disse o empresário Décio Segreto, presidente da Panorama.

Além de animais do CCZ, a ferramenta será disponibilizada gratuitamente para os cidadãos, comercializadas com clínicas veterinárias em planos anuais e mensais, e prefeituras de outras cidades ao custo de R$ 8 mil.

"O prefeito Felicio Ramuth fala até em legislar e ser obrigatório que munícipes implantem o microchip e as clínicas usem para determinar o controle dos animais", afirmou Segreto.

Segundo a Secretaria de Saúde, "a plataforma foi desenvolvida e aprimorada junto às orientações da equipedo CCZ e será utilizada após a implantação de legislação a ser trabalhada e promulgada".

O vereador Valdir Alvarenga (SD), acredita que o chip não pode ser prioridade."O resultado da castração é incomparável e dever ter prioridade"..

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Prefeitura de São José usará app para rastrear animais com chip

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technology that repoupulates animal species cloning

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technology that repoupulates animal species cloning

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alternatives to using natural resources

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Impressora 3D revoluciona medicina no Brasil e no mundo

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the benefits of technology in nature

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Desde o nascimento da ovelha Dolly, em 1997, a ciência tem feito descobertas determinantes para a cura de doenças como o cancro

Agriculture - Sheep

O nascimento da ovelha Dolly, há 13 anos, foi considerado pela revista Science o avanço científico do ano e deu o mote para a discussão universal sobre a clonagem de seres humanos. Em causa, a possibilidade de criação de pessoas com base na cópia genética de outras, vivas ou mortas.

Mais de uma década depois, a discussão sobre as implicações sociais, éticas e legais desta prática continua em curso. E, apesar de alguns anúncios mediáticos sobre a criação de clones humanos, fontes como o National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) afirmam que não existem provas científicas sólidas de que esta já tenha sido conseguida.

À margem desta discussão existe, no entanto, um outro tipo de clonagem cujos promissores avanços médicos são cada vez mais reais. Ainda não a conhece?
Clonar para curar
"A clonagem terapêutica, também chamada clonagem de embriões, é a produção de embriões humanos para fins de investigação. O objectivo não é criar clones humanos, mas colher células estaminais que podem ser usadas para estudar o desenvolvimento humano e curar doenças", esclarece um documento oficial do Human Genome Project (HGP).

O trunfo das células estaminais está em serem indiferenciadas. Isto é, ao dividirem-se, podem originar qualquer tipo de células (indiferenciadas ou diferenciadas). Desta forma, "podem ser usadas para gerar virtualmente qualquer tipo de célula especializada do corpo humano", explica a mesma fonte.
Promessas
Imagine que aguarda há anos um transplante de um órgão doente (por exemplo, o coração, o fígado, o pâncreas ou um rim), sem esperança de encontrar um dador compatível. Agora suponha que era possível produzir um novo órgão em laboratório e implantá-lo de forma segura no seu corpo. É este tipo de revolução que a clonagem terapêutica pode permitir.

"Os investigadores esperam cultivar em laboratório tecidos saudáveis que possam ser usados para substituir tecidos doentes ou danificados", lê-se numa publicação do NHGRI. Se tal for possível com tecidos, sê-lo-á também com órgãos, o que acalenta a esperança de se vir a "reduzir significativamente a necessidade de doação de órgãos", sublinha o HGP.

Uma outra aplicação da clonagem terapêutica é o estudo das causas moleculares de doenças como o cancro, Alzheimer, Parkinson e problemas cardíacos, entre outros. Conhecidas as causas, será possível a criação de medicamentos adequados ao perfil genético de cada um. Para isso, "é necessário criar embriões clonados a partir das células de animais e seres humanos com essas doenças, de modo a estudar as suas células estaminais embrionárias", explica o NHGRI.
Células essenciais
Nem todas as células estaminais têm o mesmo interesse para a investigação terapêutica: "As células estaminais embrionárias são as mais versáteis de todas, já que são menos diferenciadas ou comprometidas com uma função específica que as células estaminais adultas", argumenta o NHGRI.

A diferença está na distinção entre células estaminais multipotentes e pluripotentes. Enquanto as primeiras "podem originar apenas um pequeno número de tipos de células diferentes, as últimas "podem originar qualquer tipo de célula existente no organismo, excepto as necessárias para desenvolver um feto no útero", explica o Stem Cell Information.

A utilização de células estaminais pluripotentes para fins científicos debate-se, no entanto, com inúmeras preocupações éticas, já que, ao contrário das multipotentes, existentes em muitos órgãos e tecidos do nosso organismo, as células pluripotentes apenas se encontram nos embriões humanos, que são destruídos após a sua extracção.
Como se faz um clone
O processo de extracção de células estaminais embrionárias considerado mais promissor para a clonagem terapêutica designa-se transferência nuclear de célula somática. Trata-se do mesmo processo usado para a criação da ovelha Dolly, como descreve o NHGRI:

Primeiro, são retiradas células maduras (por exemplo, células da pele) do organismo a clonar;

Depois, é usado um óvulo não fertilizado de uma fêmea da mesma espécie (animal ou humana), ao qual se retira o núcleo (estrutura que aloja o ADN desse organismo);

Aplicando um choque eléctrico, os cientistas conseguem que o óvulo sem núcleo se funda com uma das células da pele;

A nova célula fundida, que contém o núcleo das células da pele, divide-se e forma aquilo que virá a ser um embrião;

Para a clonagem reprodutiva (Dolly), o embrião seria implantado no útero de uma fêmea e daria origem a um clone do doador das células da pele, o que não acontece na clonagem terapêutica;

Ao final de cinco dias, as células estaminais com o ADN do doador são extraídas do blastócito (embrião dividido), podendo ser usadas para criar linhas de células estaminais, isto é, "culturas de células que podem ser produzidas indefinidamente em laboratório", esclarece o Stem Cell.

A medicina regenerativa
Gerar tecidos e órgãos aptos para transplante é uma das grandes ambições da clonagem usada para fins terapêuticos.

Neste sentido, ela pode ser uma peça central no futuro da medicina regenerativa, definida pelo National Institutes of Health como "processo de criação de tecidos vivos e funcionais para reparar ou substituir tecidos ou órgãos que perderam as suas funções devido à idade, doença ou a defeitos congénitos".

Um bom exemplo deste potencial é a prática da xenotransplantação, isto é, o transplante de órgãos e tecidos de animais para seres humanos. Hoje em dia, segundo o National Institutes of Health, queimaduras em segundo grau, úlceras crónicas de pressão, úlceras cutâneas de pessoas diabéticas e lacerações profundas na pele já são tratadas com a ajuda de um material desenvolvido a partir do intestino do porco. No entanto, a clonagem terapêutica ambiciona ir mais longe, recorrendo à "criação de porcos geneticamente modificados dos quais podem ser retirados órgãos para transplantes humanos".

Da mesma forma, actualmente "é possível criar uma bexiga a partir das células estaminais de uma pessoa, desenvolvê-la fora do corpo e transplantá-la com sucesso". Não é, portanto, por acaso que o National Institutes of Health considera que "a medicina regenerativa tem potencial para resolver o problema da falta de órgãos disponíveis para doação".

Apesar de todos os avanços, o recurso a transplantes de órgãos clonados depende da resposta a vários desafios técnicos: "Têm que ser desenvolvidas tecnologias mais efectivas para a criação de embriões humanos, para colheita de células estaminais e produção de órgãos a partir delas", refere o HGP.

Neste âmbito, a relação entre células estaminais e as células cancerosas é uma das áreas que mais carece de investigação: "Ambos os tipos de células têm capacidade para proliferar indefinidamente e alguns estudos mostram que após 60 ciclos de divisão celular, as células estaminais podem acumular mutações que podem levar ao cancro", alerta o NHGRI.

Em Janeiro de 2009, a empresa norte-americana Geron obteve autorização da Food and Drug Administration para começar os primeiros ensaios clínicos com células derivadas de células embrionárias humanas, um passo que promete alimentar o progresso das investigações, mas também a discussão sobre as implicações éticas.

Texto: Rita Miguel

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Desde o nascimento da ovelha Dolly, em 1997, a ciência tem feito descobertas determinantes para a cura de doenças como o cancro O nascimento da ovelha Dolly, há 13 anos, foi considerado pela revista Science o avanço científico do ano e deu o mote para a discussão universal sobre a clonagem de seres humanos.

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I saw on tv that, IBAMA is putting in some Jaguars a necklace that send a message for a computer at the lab of IBAMA so if is all OK with the Jaguar  , one year later the necklace falls

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Advertisement

In 2009 the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corp. (Embrapa) and the Brasilia Zoological Garden began scavenging and freezing blood, sperm and umbilical cord cells from roadkill and other wild animals that had died, mostly in the Cerrado savanna-an incredibly diverse collection of tropical forest and grassland ecosystems home to at least 10,000 plant species and more than 800 species of birds and mammals, some of which live nowhere else in the world. Specimens were collected from the bush dog, collared anteater, bison and gray brocket deer, among other species.

The idea was to preserve the genetic information of Brazil's endangered wildlife. One day, the organizations reasoned, they might be able to use the collected DNA to clone endangered animals and bolster dwindling populations. So far the two institutions have collected at least 420 tissue samples. Now they are collaborating on a related project that will use the DNA in these specimens to improve breeding and cloning techniques. Current cloning techniques have an average success rate of less than 5 percent, even when working with familiar species; cloning wild animals is usually less than 1 percent successful.

Any animals born during Brazil's new undertaking will live in the Brasilia Zoo, says Embrapa researcher Carlos Martins. Expanding captive populations of wild animals, he and his team hope, will discourage zoos and researchers from taking even more wild animals out of their native habitats. Martins and his colleagues have not yet decided which species they will attempt to clone but the maned wolf and jaguar are strong candidates. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies both animals as "near threatened" on its Red List of Threatened Species, two levels below "endangered."

Many researchers agree that, at present, cloning is not a feasible or effective conservation strategy. First of all, some conservationists point out, cloning does not address the reasons that many animals become endangered in the first place-namely, hunting and habitat destruction. Even if cloning could theoretically help in truly desperate situations, current cloning techniques are simply too ineffective to make much of a difference. Compared with cloning domestic species-particularly cattle, which have been successfully cloned for years to duplicate desirable traits-cloning endangered species is far more difficult for a number of reasons.

Successful cloning generally involves at least three essential components: DNA from the animal to be cloned; a viable egg to receive that DNA; and a mother to gestate the resulting embryo. Often, hundreds of embryos and attempted pregnancies are needed to produce even a few clones. Scientists usually have a poor understanding of endangered animals' reproductive physiology, which makes it too risky to extract a sufficient number of eggs from that species or rely on females of that species to give birth to clones. Legal protections sometimes preclude threatened species from such procedures as well. To compensate, researchers fuse the DNA of an endangered species with eggs from a closely related species and select mothers from the latter. Such hybrid embryos often fail to develop properly.

Although they are keenly aware of these problems, Martins and his colleagues, as well as a few other scientists around the world, think that efforts to archive the genetic information of endangered wildlife are worthwhile. Some researchers remain optimistic that cloning will become a useful tool for conservation in the future. Optimists point to recent successes cloning wild mammals using closely related domestic species, improved techniques for preventing developmental abnormalities in a cloned embryo, better neonatal care for newborn clones and in vitro fertilization made possible by stem cells derived from frozen tissue.

The first clones
In the early 1950s, at the Lankenau Hospital Research Institute in Philadelphia, Robert Briggs and Thomas King successfully cloned 27 northern leopard frogs through a process known as nuclear transfer. The nucleus, often called the command center of the cell, contains most of a vertebrate's DNA-except for the DNA within bean-shaped, energy-generating organelles named mitochondria. Briggs and King emptied frog eggs of their nuclei, sucked nuclei out of cells in frog embryos and injected those nuclei into the empty eggs. Many of the eggs developed into tadpoles that were genetically identical to the embryos that had donated their nuclear DNA.

In 1958 John Gurdon, then at the University of Oxford, and colleagues cloned frogs with nuclear DNA extracted from the cells of fully formed tadpoles. Unlike embryonic cells, which are genetically flexible enough to become a variety of different tissues, a tadpole's cells are "differentiated"-that is, the patterns of genes they express have changed to fit the profile of a specific cell type: a skin, eye or heart cell, for example. Gurdon demonstrated that, when transplanted into an egg, nuclear DNA from a mature cell reverts to the more versatile state characteristic of DNA in an embryo's cells. This breakthrough encouraged scientists to try cloning far larger animals using DNA from adult cells.

In 1996 researchers in Scotland attempted to clone a female Finn-Dorset sheep. They injected nuclei extracted from her udder cells into nearly 300 empty eggs derived from Scottish blackfaces, a different sheep breed. Out of those prepared eggs, the scientists managed to create more than 30 embryos. Only five of those embryos developed into lambs after being implanted in surrogate Scottish blackfaces. And only one of those lambs survived into adulthood. The researchers named her Dolly.

Since then some biologists have repeatedly suggested that cloning could help save endangered species, especially in dire situations in which only a few dozen or a handful of animals remain. The smaller, more homogenous and more inbred a population, the more susceptible it is to a single harmful genetic mutation or disease. Clones could theoretically increase the genetic diversity of an endangered population if researchers have access to preserved DNA from many different individuals. At the very least, clones could stabilize a shrinking population. And, some researchers argue, a genetically homogenous but stable population would be better than extinction; some highly inbred groups of wild animals, such as Chillingham cattle in England, have survived just fine for hundreds of years.

One species that might benefit from cloning is the northern white rhinoceros, which is native to Africa. In 1960 the global northern white rhino population was more than 2,000 strong, but poaching has reduced their numbers to as few as 11 today. By last count, three live in zoos-two in San Diego and one in the Czech Republic-four live in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya and as few as four individuals may still live in the wild based on unconfirmed reports, but they have not been spotted in several years. Most of the captive animals are uninterested in mating or infertile, although two rhinos mated in the summer of 2012.

Right now, though, cloning is unlikely to help the white rhino or any other threatened species. To date, the story of cloning endangered animals is one of a few high-profile successes and many, many failures. Since the early 2000s, using the same technique that produced Dolly, researchers have cloned several endangered and even extinct mammals, including a mouflon sheep and a bovine known as a gaur in 2001; a kind of wild cattle called a banteng in 2003; a wild goat known as the Pyrenean ibex in 2009; and wild coyotes in 2012. In each case many more clones died before birth than survived; in most cases none of the clones survived into adulthood.

Mismatched
All those attempted clones of endangered or extinct animals died in different ways for different reasons, but they all shared one fundamental problem-they were not exact replicas of their counterparts. In most cases, researchers have combined DNA from the threatened species with eggs from a related domestic species. Each surrogate mother is often implanted with dozens of hybrid embryos in order to achieve at least a few pregnancies, a strategy that requires extracting hundreds of eggs. Because the reproductive physiology of most endangered animals is so poorly understood, researchers are often unsure when the animals ovulate and how best to acquire their eggs. In some cases legal protections prevent scientists from harvesting eggs from threatened species. For all these reasons, they turn to more familiar domestic species instead.

Injecting the DNA of one species into the egg of another species-even a closely related one-creates an unusual hybrid embryo that often fails to develop properly in the womb of a surrogate mother. Hybrid embryos have the nuclear DNA of the cloned species and the mitochondrial (mtDNA) DNA of the donor egg. This mismatch becomes problematic as the embryo develops. Nuclear DNA and mtDNA work together; they both contain genetic recipes for proteins with which cells extract energy from food. In a hybrid embryo these proteins do not always fit together properly, which leaves cells starved for energy. Complicating matters further, the surrogate mother often rejects the hybrid embryo because she recognizes some of the embryo's tissues, particularly the placenta, as foreign.

Another problem-and the most intractable so far-is that a hybrid embryo created via nuclear transfer is not a genetic blank slate like most embryos. All vertebrates begin life as hollow balls of embryonic stem cells, which can become almost any type of adult cell. Each of those stem cells contains a copy of the exact same genome packaged into chromosomes-tight bundles of DNA and histone proteins. As the embryo develops, the stem cells begin to take on their adult forms: some become skin cells, others heart cells and so on. Different types of cells begin to express different patterns of genes. Inside each cell an assortment of molecules and enzymes interacts with DNA and histones to change gene expression. Some molecules, such as methyl groups, physically block cellular machinery from reading the genetic instructions in certain segments of DNA; some enzymes loosen the bonds between histones and DNA, making particular genes more accessible. Eventually, each cell type-skin cell, liver cell, brain cell-has the same genome, but a different epigenome: a unique pattern of genes that are actively expressed or effectively silenced. Over time, an adult cell's epigenome can change even further, depending on the animal's life experiences.

So when researchers inject an adult cell's nucleus into an empty egg, the nucleus brings its unique epigenome with it. As Gurdon's early experiments in the 1950s and subsequent studies have shown, an egg is capable of erasing the epigenome of introduced nuclear DNA, wiping the slate clean-to some extent. This process of "nuclear reprogramming" is poorly understood, and the egg often fails to complete it properly, especially when the egg is from one species and the nuclear DNA from another. Incomplete nuclear reprogramming is one of the main reasons, scientists think, for the many developmental abnormalities that kill clones before birth and for the medical issues common to many survivors, such as extremely high birth weight and organ failure.

Some researchers see ways around these problems. Pasqualino Loi of the University of Teramo in Italy was part of a team that successfully cloned endangered mouflon sheep in the early 2000s; the clones died within six months of birth. Loi and his colleagues think they can increase the chances of a hybrid embryo surviving in a surrogate mother's womb. First, they propose, researchers could nurture a hybrid embryo for a short time in the lab until it develops into what is known as a blastocyst-the ball-shaped beginnings of a vertebrate composed of an outer circle of cells, the trophoblast, surrounding a clump of rapidly dividing stem cells known as the inner cell mass. Eventually, the trophoblast becomes the placenta. Researchers could scoop out the inner cell mass from the hybrid blastocyst, Loi suggests, and transplant it into an empty trophoblast derived from the same species as the surrogate mother. Because the surrogate mother is far less likely to reject a trophoblast from her own species, the developing embryo within has a much better chance of surviving.

Scientists have also figured out how to encourage nuclear reprogramming by bathing the egg in certain compounds and chemicals, such as trichostatin A, which stimulate or inhibit the enzymes that determine a cell's epigenome. Most recently, Teruhiko Wakayama of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan and his colleagues produced 581 cloned mice from a single donor mouse over 25 generations, using trichostatin A to achieve success rates as high as 25 percent in some but not all generations. To solve the mismatch of mtDNA and nuclear DNA, Loi suggests simply removing the egg's native mtDNA and replacing it with mtDNA from the species to be cloned-something that researchers tried in the 1970s and '80s, but have not attempted recently for reasons that are unclear.

Some of the most successful attempts to clone endangered animals in recent years have involved two of the most beloved domestic species-cats and dogs. At the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans, Martha Gomez and her colleagues have created many African wildcat clones since the mid-2000s, using domestic cats as surrogate mothers. Gomez says eight clones have survived into adulthood so far and are all healthy today. She attributes her success, in part, to the fact that wildcats and domestic cats are much more closely related to each other than are most wild and domestic species paired for the purpose of cloning. She and her team have also learned to increase success rates with caesarian sections-to spare clones the stress of a typical birth-and to keep newborn clones in intensive care for a few weeks, as though they were premature babies. In 2008, B. C. Lee of Seoul National University in Korea and his colleagues achieved similar success using domestic dogs to create three healthy male gray wolf clones. Lee's team had previously created two female gray wolf clones. All five animals survived into adulthood, Lee confirms.

Working with black-footed cats, which are native to Africa and listed as "Vulnerable" on the Red List, Gomez is now focusing on a method of cloning that differs from nuclear transfer. She is trying to transform adult cells from black-footed cats into stem cells and subsequently induce those stem cells to become sperm and eggs. Then, through in vitro fertilization or similar techniques, she could impregnate domestic cats with black-footed cat embryos. Alternatively, stem cell-derived sperm and eggs could be used to impregnate females of the endangered species.

To say that this approach is technically challenging would be an understatement, but researchers have made impressive progress. In 2011 Jeanne Loring of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and her colleagues produced stem cells from the frozen skin cells of two endangered species-the northern white rhino and a baboonlike primate known as a drill. And in 2012 Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine and colleagues turned skin cells from adult mice into stem cells, which they then transformed into viable eggs. After fertilizing the eggs with sperm in test tubes, the researchers implanted the embryos in surrogate mother mice that gave birth to healthy and fertile offspring.

"I'm not saying cloning is going to save endangered species," Gomez says, "but I am still a believer of cloning as another tool. It's not easy, though. The research moves slow."

Teramo's Loi remains optimistic too. He thinks that scientists should continue to collect and preserve the genetic information of endangered animals, as Brazil has done, creating bio-banks of tissue on ice, such as the "frozen zoo" at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research. If researchers manage to dramatically increase the efficiency of cloning wild and endangered animals-whether with nuclear transfer or in vitro fertilization-then the DNA they need will be waiting for them. If they do not, bio-banks will still be useful for more basic research. "Once cloning of endangered animals is properly established, it will be a very powerful tool," Loi says. "If something can be done, it will be done in 10 years."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Ferris Jabr

Ferris Jabr is a contributing writer for Scientific American. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker and Outside.

Credit: Nick Higgins

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Will Cloning Ever Save Endangered Animals?

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In 2009 the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corp. (Embrapa) and the Brasilia Zoological Garden began scavenging and freezing blood, sperm and umbilical cord cells from roadkill and other wild animals that had died, mostly in the Cerrado savanna-an incredibly diverse collection of tropical forest and grassland ecosystems home to at least 10,000 plant species and more than 800 species of birds and mammals, some of which live nowhere else in the world.

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Written by Sarah Cairoli

The extraction and consumption of natural resources disrupts the environment and creates pollution.Reducing the use of natural resources, such as fossil fuels and wood products, will protect human and environmental health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, burning fossil fuels pollutes the air and accounts for the majority of greenhouse-gas emissions, which influence climate change. Some resources, like fossil fuels, are not renewable, so future generations will benefit by having access to the natural resources we conserve today. Several different ways to conserve natural resources exist, and many of them can be incorporated into our daily routines with ease.

Conserve Energy

About 80% of the energy used in the United States is generated by the burning of fossil fuels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Therefore, any energy we conserve will conserve these non-renewable natural resources, which include oil, coal and natural gas. Energy conservation will also reduce air pollution, which causes respiratory and other health problems. Save energy by walking, riding a bike or taking public transportation instead of driving alone. Use alternative forms of energy, including solar power and biodiesel, when possible. Turn off lights when not in use and change incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. Wash laundry in cold water to reduce the energy required to heat the water. Replace old appliances with new, more efficient models, install a programmable thermostat and turn the heat down by a degree or two.

Conserve Water

Water is an essential natural resource that is in short supply in many places. All regions of the United States have experienced water shortages in recent years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Conserving water is crucial, and can be done by making several changes to daily habits. Don't let the water run when brushing teeth or doing dishes. Run the washing machine and dishwasher only when they are full. Make showers brief. Further reduce the use of water by watering lawns less frequently and being mindful of water use. The average U.S. family of four uses about 400 gallons of water every day.

Reuse and Recycle

Anytime we reuse products and materials, we prevent the harvest of natural resources. Timber harvests in the United States are increasing, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Help reduce the use of trees by reading e-books and borrowing from your local library. Go paperless at every opportunity by paying bills online and communicating electronically. Reuse cardboard boxes and packaging for storage or shipping. Recycle those materials that cannot be reused. The recycling of plastics, aluminum, steel, glass and paper requires energy, but reduces the harvest of raw materials.

Start a Campaign

Individual changes will help reduce the use of natural resources, but changes made by groups will have the greatest effect. Start talking about ways to conserve our natural resources and encourage family, friends, coworkers and classmates to make similar changes. Volunteer to manage the recycling program at work or organize book swaps and clothing exchanges at local schools. Car pool with neighbors who are headed in the same direction. Talk to your children about the importance of our natural resources and help them adopt environmentally friendly habits.

About the Author

Sarah Cairoli began her writing career in 2002, as a reporter for the "High Country Independent Press" in Belgrade, Mont. She then spent two years writing and editing for an online publishing company, and earned her master's degree in English from Northern Arizona University. Cairoli also writes for "Bozeman Magazine."

Photo Credits

Thomas Northcut/Digital Vision/Getty Images

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How to Reduce the Use of Natural Resources

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The extraction and consumption of natural resources disrupts the environment and creates pollution.Reducing the use of natural resources, such as fossil fuels and wood products, will protect human and environmental health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, burning fossil fuels pollutes the air and ...

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Sustainable energy is the practice of using energy in a way that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

The energy transition to meet the world's needs for electricity, heating, cooling, and power for transport in a sustainable way is widely considered to be one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Worldwide, nearly a billion people lack access to electricity, and around 3 billion people rely on smoky fuels such as wood, charcoal or animal dung in order to cook. These and fossil fuels are a major contributor to air pollution, which causes an estimated 7 million deaths per year. Production and consumption of energy emits over 70% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Proposed pathways for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C describe rapid implementation of low-emission methods of producing electricity and a shift towards more use of electricity in sectors such as transport. The pathways also include measures to reduce energy consumption; and use of carbon-neutral fuels, such as hydrogen produced by renewable electricity or with carbon capture and storage. Achieving these goals will require government policies including carbon pricing, energy-specific policies, and phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies.

When referring to methods of producing energy, the term "sustainable energy" is often used interchangeably with the term " renewable energy". In general, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy are widely considered to be sustainable. However, particular renewable energy projects, such as the clearing of forests for the production of biofuels, can lead to similar or even worse environmental damage when compared to using fossil fuel energy. Nuclear power is a zero emission source and while its sustainability is debated, the European Union has chosen it to be the part of a low-carbon energy backbone by 2050.

Moderate amounts of wind and solar energy, which are intermittent energy sources, can be integrated into the electrical grid without additional infrastructure such as grid energy storage. These sources generated 7.5% of worldwide electricity in 2018, a share that has grown rapidly. As of 2019, costs of wind, solar, and batteries are projected to continue falling.

The concept of sustainable development was described by the World Commission on Environment and Development in its 1987 book Our Common Future. Its definition of "sustainability", now used widely, was, "Sustainable development should meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

In its book, the Commission described four key elements of sustainability with respect to energy: the ability to increase the supply of energy to meet growing human needs, energy efficiency and conservation, public health and safety, and "protection of the biosphere and prevention of more localized forms of pollution." Various definitions of sustainable energy have been offered since then which are also based on the three pillars of sustainable development, namely environment, economy, and society.

Environmental criteria include greenhouse gas emissions, impact on biodiversity, and the production of hazardous waste and toxic emissions.

Economic criteria include the cost of energy, whether energy is delivered to users with high reliability, and effects on jobs associated with energy production.

Socio-cultural criteria include the prevention of wars over the energy supply (energy security) and long-term availability of energy.[citation needed ]

The organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains: ecology, economics, politics and culture.

Providing sustainable energy is widely viewed as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, both in terms of meeting the needs of the present and in terms of effects on future generations. Bill Gates said in 2011:

If you gave me the choice between picking the next 10 presidents or ensuring that energy is environmentally friendly and a quarter as costly, I'd pick the energy thing.

Worldwide, 940 million (13% of the world) people do not have access to electricity, and 3 billion people rely on dirty fuels for cooking. Air pollution, caused largely by the burning of fuel, kills an estimated 7 million people each year. United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 calls for "access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all" by 2030.

Energy production and consumption are major contributors to climate change, being responsible for 72% of annual human-caused greenhouse gas emissions as of 2014. Generation of electricity and heat contributes 31% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, use of energy in transportation contributes 15%, and use of energy in manufacturing and construction contributes 12%. An additional 5% is released through processes associated with fossil fuel production, and 8% through various other forms of fuel combustion. As of 2015, 80% of the world's primary energy is produced from fossil fuels.

In developing countries, over 2.5 billion people rely on traditional cookstoves and open fires to burn biomass or coal for heating and cooking. This practice causes harmful local air pollution and increases the danger from fires, resulting in an estimated 4.3 million deaths annually. Additionally, serious local environmental damage, including desertification, can be caused by excessive harvesting of wood and other combustible material. Promoting usage of cleaner fuels and more efficient technologies for cooking is, therefore, one of the top priorities of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All initiative. As of 2015, efforts to design clean cookstoves that are inexpensive, powered by sustainable energy sources, and acceptable to users have been mostly disappointing.

Cost-benefit analysis work has been done by a disparate array of specialists and agencies to determine the best path to decarbonizing the energy supply of the world. The IPCC's 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C says that for limiting warming to 1.5 °C and avoiding the worst effects of climate change, "global net human-caused emissions of would need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050." As part of this report, the IPCC's working group on climate change mitigation reviewed a variety of previously-published papers that describe pathways (i.e. scenarios and portfolios of mitigation options) to stabilize the climate system through changes in energy, land use, agriculture, and other areas.

The pathways that are consistent with limiting warning to approximately 1.5 °C describe a rapid transition towards producing electricity through lower-emission methods, and increasing use of electricity instead of other fuels in sectors such as transportation. These pathways have the following characteristics (unless otherwise stated, the following values are the median across all pathways):

Renewable energy: The proportion of primary energy supplied by renewables increases from 15% in 2020 to 60% in 2050. The proportion of primary energy supplied by biomass increases from 10% to 27%, with effective controls on whether land use is changed in the growing of biomass. The proportion from wind and solar increases from 1.8% to 21%.

Nuclear energy: The proportion of primary energy supplied by nuclear power increases from 2.1% in 2020 to 4% in 2050. Most pathways describe an increase in use of nuclear power, but some describe a decrease. The reason for the wide range of possibilities is that deployment of nuclear energy "can be constrained by societal preferences."

Coal and oil: Between 2020 and 2050, the proportion of primary energy from coal declines from 26% to 5%, and the proportion from oil declines from 35% to 13%.

Natural gas: In most pathways, the proportion of primary energy supplied by natural gas decreases, but in some pathways, it increases. Using the median values across all pathways, the proportion of primary energy from natural gas declines from 23% in 2020 to 13% in 2050.

Carbon capture and storage: Pathways describe more use of carbon capture and storage for bioenergy and fossil fuel energy.

Electrification: In 2020, around 20% of final energy use is provided by electricity. By 2050, this proportion more than doubles in most pathways.

Energy conservation: Pathways describe methods to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy demand in all sectors (industry, buildings, and transport). With these measures, pathways show energy usage to remain around the same between 2010 and 2030, and increase slightly by 2050.

When referring to sources of energy, the terms "sustainable energy" and "renewable energy" are often used interchangeably, however particular renewable energy projects sometimes raise significant sustainability concerns. Renewable energy technologies are essential contributors to sustainable energy as they generally contribute to world energy security, and reduce dependence on fossil fuel resources thus mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2018, solar power provided around 3% of global electricity. Solar electricity production uses photovoltaic (PV) cells to convert light into electrical current. Photovoltaic modules can be integrated into buildings or used in photovoltaic power stations connected to the electrical grid. They are especially useful for providing electricity to remote areas. Although generally warranted for 25 years it is claimed that an average solar panel will last 40 years and almost all of it can be recycled.

Currently, photovoltaic (PV) panels only have the ability to convert around 24% of the sunlight that hits them into electricity. At this rate, solar energy still holds many challenges for widespread implementation, but steady progress has been made in reducing manufacturing cost and increasing photovoltaic efficiency. In 2008, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed a method to store solar energy by using it to produce hydrogen fuel from water. Such research is targeted at addressing the obstacle that solar development faces of storing energy for use during nighttime hours when the sun is not shining.

Large national and regional research projects on artificial photosynthesis are designing nanotechnology-based systems that use solar energy to split water into hydrogen fuel and a proposal has been made for a Global Artificial Photosynthesis project.

Research is ongoing in space-based solar power, a concept in which solar panels are launched into outer space and the energy they capture is transmitted back to Earth as microwaves. A test facility for the technology is being built in China.

Solar heating systems generally consist of solar thermal collectors, a fluid system to move the heat from the collector to its point of usage, and a reservoir or tank for heat storage and subsequent use. The systems may be used to heat domestic hot water, swimming pool water, or for space heating. The heat can also be used for industrial applications or as an energy input for other uses such as cooling equipment. In many climates, a solar heating system can provide a very high percentage (20 to 80%) of domestic hot water energy. Heat can be stored through thermal energy storage technologies. For instance, the summer heat can be stored for winter heating. Similar principles are used to store winter cold for summer air conditioning.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

In 2018, wind power provided approximately 6% of the global electricity supply. However, it may be difficult to site wind turbines in some areas for aesthetic or environmental reasons. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other purposes. A wind farm may also be located offshore.

After about 20 years wind turbine blades need replacing with larger blades, and research continues on how best to recycle them and how to manufacture blades which are easier to recycle.

Among sources of renewable energy, hydroelectric plants have the advantages of being long-lived-many existing plants have operated for more than 100 years. Also, hydroelectric plants are clean, have few emissions and can compensate for variations in wind and solar power. Criticisms directed at large-scale hydroelectric plants include: dislocation of people living where the reservoirs are planned, and release of greenhouse gases during construction and flooding of the reservoir.

However, it has been found that high emissions are associated only with shallow reservoirs in warm (tropical) locales, and recent innovations in hydropower turbine technology are enabling efficient development of low-impact run-of-the-river hydroelectricity projects. Generally speaking, hydroelectric plants produce much lower life-cycle emissions than other types of generation.

In 2015, hydropower supplied 16% of the world's electricity, down from a high of nearly 20% in the mid-to late 20th century. It produced 60% of electricity in Canada and nearly 80% in Brazil. As of 2017, new hydropower construction has stopped or slowed down since 1980 in most countries except China.

Biomass is biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms. As an energy source, biomass can either be burned to produce heat and to generate electricity or converted to modern biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol.

Biomass is extremely versatile and one of the most-used sources of renewable energy. It is available in many countries, which makes it attractive for reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels. If the production of biomass is well-managed, carbon emissions can be significantly offset by the absorption of carbon dioxide by the plants during their lifespans. However this "carbon debt" may be paid back too late, or (especially in the United States) not properly accounted for. If the biomass source is agricultural or municipal waste, burning it or converting it into biogas also provides a way to dispose of this waste. Bioenergy production can be combined with carbon capture and storage to create a zero-carbon or negative-carbon system, but it is doubtful this can be scaled up quickly enough.

If biomass is harvested from crops, such as tree plantations, the cultivation of these crops can displace natural ecosystems, degrade soils, and consume water resources and synthetic fertilizers. In some cases, these impacts can actually result in higher overall carbon emissions compared to using petroleum-based fuels.

Biofuels are fuels, such as ethanol, manufactured from various types of biomass, such as corn or sugar beet. Biofuels are usually liquid and used to power transport, often blended with liquid fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel or kerosene. As of 2020 which are sustainable biofuel is being debated.

Cellulosic ethanol has many benefits over traditional corn based-ethanol. It does not take away or directly conflict with the food supply because it is produced from wood, grasses, or non-edible parts of plants. Moreover, some studies have shown cellulosic ethanol to be potentially more cost effective and economically sustainable than corn-based ethanol. As of 2018, efforts to commercialize production of cellulosic ethanol have been mostly disappointing, but new commercial efforts are continuing.

Use of farmland for growing fuel can result in less land being available for growing food. Since photosynthesis is inherently inefficient, and crops also require significant amounts of energy to harvest, dry, and transport, the amount of energy produced per unit of land area is very small, in the range of 0.25 W/m ² to 1.2 W/m ². In the United States, corn-based ethanol has replaced less than 10% of motor gasoline use since 2011, but has consumed around 40% of the annual corn harvest in the country. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the clearing of forests to produce palm oil for biodiesel has led to serious social and environmental effects, as these forests are critical carbon sinks and habitats for endangered species. In 2015, annual global production of liquid biofuels was equivalent to 1.8% of the energy extracted from crude oil. It has been suggested that, due to the limited quantities that can be sustainably produced, it should all be aviation biofuel: because unlike other forms of transport long-distance aviation cannot be powered by batteries, hydrogen, ammonia or fuel cells.

Geothermal energy is produced by tapping into the thermal energy created and stored within the earth. It arises from the radioactive decay of an isotope of potassium and other elements found in the Earth's crust. Geothermal energy can be obtained by drilling into the ground, very similar to oil exploration, and then it is carried by a heat-transfer fluid (e.g. water, brine or steam). Geothermal systems that are mainly dominated by water have the potential to provide greater benefits to the system and will generate more power. Within these liquid-dominated systems, there are possible concerns of subsidence and contamination of ground-water resources. Therefore, protection of ground-water resources is necessary in these systems. This means that careful reservoir production and engineering is necessary in liquid-dominated geothermal reservoir systems. Geothermal energy is considered sustainable because that thermal energy is constantly replenished.

Geothermal energy can be harnessed to for electricity generation and for heating. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. As of 2010, geothermal electricity generation is used in 24 countries, while geothermal heating is in use in 70 countries. International markets grew at an average annual rate of 5 percent over the three years to 2015.

Geothermal power is considered to be a sustainable, renewable source of energy because the heat extraction is small compared with the Earth's heat content. The greenhouse gas emissions of geothermal electric stations are on average 45 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity, or less than 5 percent of that of conventional coal-fired plants.

Marine energy is mainly tidal power and wave power. As of 2020, a few small tidal power plants are operating in France and China, and engineers continue to try and make wave power equipment more robust against storms.

Nuclear power plants have been used since the 1950s to produce a zero emission, steady supply of electricity, without creating local air pollution. In 2012, nuclear power plants in 30 countries generated 11% of global electricity. The IPCC considers nuclear power to be a low-carbon energy source, with lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions (including the mining and processing of uranium), similar to the emissions from renewable energy sources. As of 2020 nuclear power provides 50% of European Union low-carbon electricity and 26% of total energy production in Europe.

There is considerable controversy over whether nuclear power can be considered sustainable, with debates revolving around the risk of nuclear accidents, the cost and construction time needed to build new plants, the generation of radioactive nuclear waste, and the potential for nuclear energy to contribute to nuclear proliferation. These concerns have spurred the anti-nuclear movement and led to a decrease in the contribution of nuclear energy to the global electricity supply since 1993. At a global level, opposition to nuclear energy stood at 62 percent in 2011. Public support for nuclear energy is often low as a result of safety concerns, however for each unit of energy produced, nuclear energy is far safer than fossil fuel energy. The uranium ore used to fuel nuclear fission plants is a non-renewable resource, but sufficient quantities exist to provide a supply for hundreds of years.

Traditional environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are opposed to all use of nuclear power. Individuals who have described nuclear power as a green energy source include philanthropist Bill Gates and environmentalist James Lovelock.

In 2018 nuclear power was chosen by European Union as part of the low-carbon European power system.

Safety assessment of already operating nuclear power plants to extend their lifetimes, perhaps up to 80 years, continues. Regardless of past accidents, nuclear power remains the safest energy source available per unit of energy as compared to other sources.

Newer nuclear reactor designs are capable of extracting energy from nuclear waste until it is no longer (or dramatically less) dangerous, and have design features that greatly minimize the possibility of a nuclear accident. These designs (for instance the molten salt reactor) have yet to be commercialized.

Thorium is a fissionable material used in thorium-based nuclear power. The thorium fuel cycle claims several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle, including greater abundance, superior physical and nuclear properties, better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation and reduced plutonium and actinide production. Therefore, it is sometimes referred as sustainable.

A prospective energy source is nuclear fusion (as opposed to nuclear fission used today). It is the reaction that exists in stars, including the Sun. Fusion reactors currently in construction ( ITER) are expected to be inherently safe due to lack of chain reaction and do not produce long-lived nuclear waste. The fuel for nuclear fusion reactors are very widely available deuterium, lithium and tritium.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

In theory, the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuel and biomass power plants can be significantly reduced through carbon capture and storage, although this process is expensive. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the lowest cost path to meeting the 2 °C target includes massive deployment of one specific type of negative emissions technology called bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, or BECCS. However, achieving this target through BECCS requires more resources than are currently available worldwide. For example, to capture 10 billion tons of CO ₂ per year (GtCO ₂/y) would require biomass from 40 percent of the world's current cropland.

Solar and wind are variable renewable energy (VRE) sources that supply electricity intermittently depending on the weather and the time of day. Overall intermittency can be reduced by combining these sources, and in some places batteries can also be combined to eliminate intermittency completely, so that the whole installation produces dispatchable power.

Most electric grids were constructed for non-intermittent energy sources such as coal-fired power plants. According to the International Energy Agency: "Power system flexibility is required across a range of timescales, and different flexibility hardware solutions and operational practices solutions offer timescale-specific capabilities". Half the world's electricity will need to be wind and solar by 2030, to limit the global rise in temperature to well below 2 °C by 2050. As larger amounts of solar and wind energy are integrated into the grid, it becomes necessary to make changes to the overall system to ensure that the supply of electricity is matched to demand.These changes can include the following:

As of 2019, the cost and logistics of energy storage for large population centers is a significant challenge, although the cost of battery systems has plunged dramatically. For instance, a 2019 study found that for solar and wind energy to replace all fossil fuel generation for a week of extreme cold in the eastern and midwest United States, energy storage capacity would have to increase from the 11 GW in place at that time to between 230 GW and 280 GW, depending on how much nuclear power is retired.

Pumped-storage as well as load following coal, fossil gas and nuclear power plants are the most widespread techniques for balancing intermittent energy sources as of 2020.

As of 2020 in the European Union this has become the de facto standard in countries which decided to shut down their zero-emission nuclear power plants such as Germany. This practice has led to a debate between Germany, which made significant investments in fossil gas imports but failed its emission reduction goals, and France, whose energy mix is largely composed of nuclear power and whose average CO2 emissions from energy sector are 5x smaller than Germany.

Some technologies provide short-term energy storage, while others can endure for much longer. Bulk energy storage is currently dominated by hydroelectric dams, both conventional as well as pumped. Grid energy storage is a collection of methods used for energy storage on a large scale within an electrical power grid.

Common examples of energy storage are the rechargeable battery, which stores electricity as chemical energy readily reconvertible to electricity to return to the grid, the hydroelectric dam, which stores energy in a reservoir as gravitational potential energy, and ice storage tanks, which store ice frozen by cheaper energy at night to meet peak daytime demand for cooling.

The relative roles of waste heat, solar thermal, geothermal, electrification, biomass and hydrogen in the production of sustainable heat are being debated.

Hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel that can be produced by using electrolysis to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can play a role for storing energy in a sustainable energy system if the electricity used to produce it is generated from sustainable sources, such as wind or solar. Hydrogen can be produced when there is a surplus of intermittent renewable electricity, then stored and used to generate heat or to re-generate electricity. Hydrogen can be distributed by ship or through pipelines. Up to 20% can be mixed into natural gas pipelines without changing pipelines or appliances, but as hydrogen is less energy-dense this would only save 7% of emissions. As of 2020 trials are underway on how to convert a natural gas grid to 100% hydrogen, in order to reduce or eliminate emissions from residential and industrial natural gas heating. It can be used to power vehicles that have hydrogen fuel cells. As it has a low energy to volume content, it is easier to use in hydrogen-powered ships or heavy road vehicles than in cars and airplanes.

As of 2018, very little of the world's supply of hydrogen is created from sustainable sources. Nearly all hydrogen is created by steam methane reforming (SMR), which results in high greenhouse gas emissions but is currently cheaper than creating hydrogen via electrolysis. Although some carbon from SMR could be captured the process can be made more sustainable by using autothermal reforming with carbon capture and storage technologies to remove most of the carbon dioxide that is emitted.

Moving towards energy sustainability will require changes not only in the way energy is supplied, but in the way it is used, and many say that reducing the amount of energy required to deliver various goods or services is essential. Others agree that energy efficiency is desirable, but say that electrification and its automatic efficiency gains (at least in the USA as of 2020) would be sufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goals if pursued vigorously enough. Opportunities for improvement on the demand side of the energy equation are as rich and diverse as those on the supply side, and often offer significant economic benefits.

Efficiency slows down energy demand growth so that rising clean energy supplies can make deep cuts in fossil fuel use. A 2011 historical analysis demonstrated that the rate of energy efficiency improvements was generally outpaced by the rate of growth in energy demand, due to continuing economic and population growth. Because carbon emissions over the period studied were coupled with total energy use, despite energy efficiency gains total carbon emissions continued to increase. Thus, given the thermodynamic and practical limits of energy efficiency improvements, slowing the growth in energy demand has been said to be essential. However, unless clean energy supplies come online rapidly, slowing demand growth will only begin to reduce total emissions; reducing the carbon content of energy sources is also needed. Any serious vision of a sustainable energy economy thus requires commitments to both renewables and efficiency.

As of 2019 fossil fuels still supply over 80% of world energy consumption and, although energy consumption per person is expected to peak in the 2020s, the use of sustainable energy is not increasing fast enough to meet the 2 degree goal of the Paris Agreement.

As of 2019 forecasts for the 400 GW of nuclear power capacity, which in 2018 supplied 10% of the world's electricity, vary from an 8% decrease to a 25% increase by 2030.

In 2020, the International Energy Agency warned that the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus outbreak may prevent or delay companies from investing in green energy. The outbreak could potentially spell a slowdown in the world's clean energy transition if no action is undertaken.

On average for a given unit of energy produced, the greenhouse gas emissions of natural gas are around half the emissions of coal when used to generate electricity, and around two-thirds the emissions of coal when used to produce heat: however reducing methane leaks is imperative. Natural gas also produces significantly less air pollution than coal. Building gas-fired power plants and gas pipelines is therefore promoted as a way to phase out coal and wood burning pollution (and increase energy supply in some African countries with fast growing populations or economies), however this practice is controversial. Opponents argue that developing natural gas infrastructure will create decades of carbon lock-in and stranded assets, and that renewables create far less emissions at comparable costs. The life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of natural gas are around 40 times the emissions of wind and nuclear energy.

Electrification is a key part of using energy sustainably, as many mainstream sustainable energy technologies are electricity-based. As of 2018 860 million people are estimated to have no electricity, of whom 600 million are in sub-saharan Africa. According to a 2019 report by the IEA, in sub-saharan Africa "current and planned efforts to provide access to modern energy services barely outpace population growth" and would still leave over half a billion people without electricity and over a billion without clean cooking by 2030. But according to the report this can be vastly improved, in part by accelerating electrification.

According to the IPCC, both explicit carbon pricing and complementary energy-specific policies are necessary mechanisms to limit global warming to 1.5 °C.

Energy-specific programs and regulations have historically been the mainstay of efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Successful cases include the building of nuclear reactors in France in the 1970s and 1980s, and fuel efficiency standards in the United States which conserved billions of barrels of oil. Other examples of energy-specific policies include energy-efficiency requirements in building codes, banning new coal-fired electricity plants, performance standards for electrical appliances, and support for electric vehicle use. Nevertheless fossil fuel subsidies remain a key barrier to a transition to a clean energy system.

Carbon taxes are an effective way to encourage movement towards a low-carbon economy, while providing a source of revenue that can be used to lower other taxes or to help lower-income households afford higher energy costs. Carbon taxes have encountered strong political pushback in some jurisdictions, whereas energy-specific policies tend to be politically safer. According to the OECD climate change cannot be curbed without carbon taxes on energy, but 70% of energy-related CO2 emissions were not taxed at all in 2018. Some studies estimate that combining a carbon tax with energy-specific policies would be more cost-effective than a carbon tax alone.

Bruckner, T.; et al. (2014). "Chapter 7: Energy Systems" (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report 2014. pp. 511-597.

IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H. O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J. B. R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M. I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, T. Waterfield (eds.)].

Kutscher, C.F.; Milford, J.B.; Kreith, F. (2018). Principles of Sustainable Energy Systems, Third Edition. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Series. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-429-93916-7.

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Sustainable energy is the practice of using energy in a way that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The energy transition to meet the world's needs for electricity, heating, cooling, and power for transport in a sustainable way is widely considered to be one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.

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Title: Write what you want to know

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Technology that repopulates animal especies

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Alternatives to using natural resources in a beter way

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welcome to the PYPexhibition journal

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