Energy Facts

Nigeria is a fast developing and industrialized society. We use a lot of energy - in our homes, in businesses, in industry, and for traveling between different places.

The residential and commercial sectors combined use even more than this - almost 40 percent of all energy.

These two sectors include all types of buildings, such as houses, offices, stores, restaurants, and places of worship. Energy used for transportation accounts for more than a quarter of all energy.

What Happens When Oil and Gas Run Out?

Oil and Gas (also known as fossil fuels) will eventually run out. The reality is that the world will not use the  last lump of coal, the last drop of oil, or the last puff of natural gas. The issue will be what happens when this energy source stops being so plentiful and cheap?

Peak Oil is the point at which the production of oil reaches the maximum (usually when half of the available oil has been extracted). This is followed by a long period, typically some decades, of declining production.

Although there is much debate about this, the consensus is that the peak for oil will likely happen in the next decade. Discoveries of new oil fields have been in decline for 40 years. The world is now using four times more oil than new sources are being found.

Nuclear Energy has been proposed as a possible alternative to oil and gas, however it produces highly toxic waste that lasts for thousands of years and for which there is no safe treatment.

Many suggest that hydrogen will take the place of oil. However, although hydrogen is a clean fuel, it is not freely available. It is not a source of energy, rather it is a means of storing and carrying energy. To produce hydrogen requires an input of energy, so it is only a solution if the initial energy source is cheap and non-polluting.

An alternative is a combination of energy efficiency and renewables that in various ways harness the plentiful and free energy from the sun, the tides, and the earth to produce electricity, heating and fuel.

Please write us if you think you have a brilliant idea on wind or wave energy!!!