Smoke's increasing cloud across the globe

It is in the world’s poorest regions that smoke is a major threat, including China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. On current trends, 200 million more people will rely on these polluting fuels by 2030. Women and children are exposed for up to seven hours a day to pollution concentrations 100 times and more above accepted safety levels. There is ample medical evidence that smoke from burning biomass fuels leads to killer diseases, such as penumonia, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer.

Smoke is a chronic problem in rural areas of developing countries. Most people who depend on biomass fuels live in the countryside where wood and agricultural residues are readily available.

However, there is a growing problem in cities as well, as many people moving from rural areas to urban settlements continue to use traditional fuels. There is a complex relationship between indoor and outdoor pollution in urban areas. In cities, indoor air pollution can be due partly to external pollution sources such as vehicle emissions. In turn, the outdoor air pollution in parts of cities can consist largely of the emissions from fires in people’s homes.

On current trends, the number of people relying on biomass for cooking and heating is set to rise by 200 million, to 2.6 billion, by 2030. The majority of the rise will be in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The actual percentage of the world’s population relying on biomass is projected to decline, but the rate of decline will not keep up with population growth.


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	Sustainable Energy
3.1 What problems are associated with the supply of energy?	• Economic • Environmental • Political • Technological

	Key Idea 3.1 What problems are associated with the supply of energy? • This is a topic that was not previously in GG5. Producing energy gives rise to problems in societies at all levels of development. The topic has strong links with many other aspects of the specification but in particular G1/1. A good deal of the material from that section should be understood and applied here. • Economic One major problem with energy is its cost. Fossil fuels are finite. Many believe peak oil production has been reached http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/27/peak-oil-global-warming/ . With increasing demand and diminishing supplies prices must increase. Alternative forms of energy need massive investment in research and development, and almost all forms seem expensive to build. These costs put a strain on developed and emerging economies, and may be beyond countries with limited economic development. Fuelwood is still a major source of heating and cooking energy in developing countries. Wood burning in confined domestic spaces is one of the greatest sources of ill health. Impaired lung capacity and cancer from smoke particles often lead to very low life expectancy. • Environmental Traditional forms of energy almost all depend on fossil fuels and lead to carbon output. Carbon capture is in its infancy and prohibitively expensive. But the global environment cannot withstand current levels of carbon emission. Almost all alternative measures have environmental implications. • Political Hardly any country is self-sufficient in all the forms of energy it needs. Most governments worry about depending on sources from other countries in case political disputes threaten supplies. Governments need to harmonise actions to limit CO2 output, but finding agreement is not easy, and implementing policies can make them unpopular with their electorates. • Technological There can be ways of producing power to meet future demands but most of the technology needed has yet to be developed. Only the most developed countries have the numbers of educated people, the research facilities and the funding to develop new technologies. Ideas for the technological solutions seem few at present, and many are untested and may prove to be unfeasible or misguided.
	note

	PowerPoint - illustration of bullet points above.

	Dustbin Game
	Click here for full screen version
	Source to make the game: http://classtools.net/widgets/dustbin_6/LGmrF.htm Classtools.net
	Smoke's increasing cloud across the globe It is in the world’s poorest regions that smoke is a major threat, including China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. On current trends, 200 million more people will rely on these polluting fuels by 2030. Women and children are exposed for up to seven hours a day to pollution concentrations 100 times and more above accepted safety levels. There is ample medical evidence that smoke from burning biomass fuels leads to killer diseases, such as penumonia, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. Smoke is a chronic problem in rural areas of developing countries. Most people who depend on biomass fuels live in the countryside where wood and agricultural residues are readily available. However, there is a growing problem in cities as well, as many people moving from rural areas to urban settlements continue to use traditional fuels. There is a complex relationship between indoor and outdoor pollution in urban areas. In cities, indoor air pollution can be due partly to external pollution sources such as vehicle emissions. In turn, the outdoor air pollution in parts of cities can consist largely of the emissions from fires in people’s homes. On current trends, the number of people relying on biomass for cooking and heating is set to rise by 200 million, to 2.6 billion, by 2030. The majority of the rise will be in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The actual percentage of the world’s population relying on biomass is projected to decline, but the rate of decline will not keep up with population growth. Source: http://practicalaction.org/smoke/report_2

	Task: Prepare a short (5 minute) presentation on of the items below...

	Examiner suggests these resources
	A very attractive Power Point presentation on ‘peak oil’ and dwindling fossil fuel reserves can be downloaded from http://www.peakoil.com/downcat8.html Identify how long fossil fuel supplies may last As reserves dwindle, the cost of fossil fuels rise, http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm Graph the rising cost of a fossil fuel over the last 30 years Political disputes may arise over use of energy, both Syria and Turkey claim rights to use the Euphrates for HEP, see http://www.pet.hw.ac.uk/ea/pdfs/bn1_windpower.pdf Outline how political pressures may limit exploitation of an energy source The environmental impacts of fossil fuels are well outlined at http://archive.greenpeace.org/climate/science/reports/fossil.pdf Add extra examples to previous AS studies New forms of energy have environmental risks, for nuclear power http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/nuclear_power_climate.pdf and for wind power http://www.pet.hw.ac.uk/ea/pdfs/bn1_windpower.pdf Note objections to two alternative sources of energy Some promising alternative sources, such as wave power, have many technological problems yet to be solved, see http://www.energylinx.co.uk/water.htm Outline the technological problems of developing an alternative source of energy