Conclusion
Over the past 50 years, the total world population has almost doubled. Earth has a limited amount of land that is suitable to live on, any more people could cause serious overcrowding, which is already evident in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore. As the population increases, the world demand for things like electricity, gas and water will become even higher and this will lead to further destruction of our planet.
However, every time we turn on the stove or turn up the heating, it’s unlikely that we think about where our gas is coming from or how dependent we are on particular sources of supply. In the past, the UK has been fortunate enough to have large natural gas resources available from the North Sea, but these are no longer sufficient to meet all our domestic needs and will be exhausted within a generation. The prospect of ‘the well running dry’ necessitates a progressive increase in imports from abroad.
One means of achieving this is by the seaborne transport of LNG. The use of seaborne transport for LNG is by no means a new development but the liquefaction of the gas is the key element in being able to ship in bulk. In its liquid state, the volume occupied by natural gas reduces by a factor of 600, so an average-sized tanker – at more than 290m long and 45m wide – can actually transport more than 135,000m3 of useable gas. In the future, tankers capable of transporting as much as 250,000m3 are planned.
International trade in LNG is increasing because of a number of factors including greater demand for cleaner fuel and the waining of local natural gas resources in large user states.
But as governments and organisations allocate money to projects that will develop new technology to improve use of alternative energy sources, there is a lot that we can do to use resources responsibly including recycling, changing resources for more sustainable ones and using resources carefully to slow our consumption of them.
It is expected that 60% of all our energy will come from renewable energy by the year 2070. If we intend to do something about our planet, to safeguard our future and to create a healthy environment for the generations to come, then we must all actively utilise renewable energy in our daily life.
Key Stage 3: Resources and Energy, Non-renewable energy; Renewable energy, The use and abuse of resources.