Energy savings

Sure, it comes out of the plug socket, but how did it first get in there? There are several possibilities. This time the coal-fired power station is taken as an example. A coal-fired power station is a big factory with huge chimneys from which a lot of dark smoke exits. Inside of this station coal is burned, in order to produce electricity, also called electric current. The current is transported via high voltage pylons into an electric power station which ensures the transport of electricity through underground pipes into the fuse box of each house or flat. However, conventional boilers do not work with electric current, but by burning gas, oil or wood. In the basement you will probably find a boiler that heats the water and sends it to the radiators.

Rather than taking the car, which consumes the end product of petroleum, such as Gasoline, you can safely ride a bike. This will be driven with body energy and produces no carbon dioxide. Even if you don’t let the lights and the heating turned on unnecessary, you can save energy. There will be less CO₂ produced, if you only swith on lamps and heaters if you really need them. In addition, you and your parents save money if you DO NOT keep the lights, heating and/or TV running nonstop. Every time when you turn these objects on, it will cost money.

Our earth is surrounded by an envelope of air, called the atmosphere. In this atmosphere are gases, among them carbon dioxide. Some of these gases allow sunlight to pass through. the surfacce of the earth heats up and radiates back this heat. Normally it would escape into space, while the earth temperature would go down again. The gases in our atmosphere, also called greenhouse gases, hold back the heat that wants to return into space. Only a small proportion can escape. This retention of heat is called the greenhouse effect.

Therefore carbon dioxide, or shortly called CO2, is very important for the regulation of the temperature on Earth. It is a harmless gas. For the plants of mother earth, the carbon dioxide is essential to life. They ‘breath in’ this gas and convert it into oxygen, which then is breathed by humans and animals. Without CO2 and the other gases, life wouldn’t be possible on our planet and our Earth would be nothing more than a giant ball of ice, which wouldn’t allow liquid water to create itself. No liquid water, no life. The problem now is that we, the people, create way too much CO2 by driving around in cars, never shutting down the lights, taking lots of showers and heating nonstop. For sure the plants can’t convert all this carbon dioxide into oxygen, which is why a large part remains in the Earth’s atmosphere. This fact creates a quicker warming-up stage on Earth. The consequences are, for example, that most of the shnow and the ice glaciers will melt, causing a rise of the sea level and flooding areas close to the coasts.