As an engineer advocating sustainability in the design, construction, and operation

of buildings, how will you address the frequent shortage of electricity in locality?
Sustainable Approach: Electricity Shortage
“Sustainability is here to stay, or we may not be.”
-Niall FitzGerald
Maintaining a world in a sustainable way, it is a big challenge for us
specially to aspiring engineers. The pressure to keep the demands and resources up
to the next generation keep us thinking, is it impossible to achieve this? The road
might be too long to restore what was damage and it is not easy rehabilitate the
possible outcome of our greediness towards our environment. But the word hope
and unity, is the best inspiration we can grab to keep on believing to the wonders
and possibilities we can make in the future.
As a future engineer advocating sustainability in the design, construction,
and operation of buildings, to address frequent shortage of electricity in locality we
look on a small and large scale. We should also look on the causes or reasons of
the said problem. In order to assess immediate action and long-term rehabilitation,
it is important to know first the root-cause of the said problem.
In knowing the cause of frequent shortage of electricity, we might encounter
natural disasters, high demands, shortage of resources, abuse usage, and such. To
address all of these, we should start on thinking what is role of engineers to
facilitate these problems. As an engineer it important to apply our knowledge and
experience to mitigate, prevent, and lessen the effect of this phenomenon. The
following are the possible way to address the frequent shortage of electricity in
locality:
Sturdy foundation of power outlines and electric facilities. By building
and creating power lines that could withstand strong winds, storm, trees, and other
natural huge force, we can ensure a possible way to stop frequent shortage of
electricity. Other countries like Japan, they make sure that their power lines are
injected underground to provide a safe and aesthetic way of transporting way of
electricity. It might be expensive, but it is worth it especially for country that is
home for many natural disasters.
Energy transition to renewable energy sources. Most of our sources in
generating electricity is came from non-renewable sources like oil, natural gas, and
coal that is also helping on increasing the effect of global warming and climate
change. We should secure on building electricity sources that are renewable and
environmentally friendly. Some energy sources, unlike fossil fuels, are completely
renewable and do not create greenhouse gases. Solar energy, hydropower, wind
energy, geothermal energy, and biomass energy are examples of clean and
sustainable alternative energy alternatives. We can build solar panels especially
remote areas that could easily affected by natural disasters, building a sustainable
dam that can produce electricity without the environment, transform wind energy
into electricity by building sustainable wind power mills, and building human
powered electro-bicycle for charging our gadgets—maintaining a healthy lifestyle
while saving our environment. Typhoon Odette shows us how vulnerable our
sources of energy. It is important to assess and apply those experiences to build a
long-lasting and sustainable electric facility.