Man's Increasing Need for Energy

For the people living in a modern industrialised country, almost everything they do uses energy. Sometimes the use is obvious, but most energy use is hidden.

Let's compare a fairly typical day for people living in a modern industrialised country and for people living deep in the countryside of a non-industrialised nation, without electricity and similar convienience.

1 Having a bath
Fuel might be gas , oil or coal, which is needed to heat central water system. Fuel was also used at the water treatment works to purify water.
Have a wash in cold water from the stream or lake

2 Making a meal
Cookers, ovens, refrigerators and food processors all use electricity from the power stations, which consume large quantities of fuel to produce electricity.
The food is fresh, from the fields and farm animals. The fuel used is wood.

3 Cleaning the room
The vacuum cleaner needs electricity and also to manufacture the vacuum cleaner requires large quantities of energy
By sweeping with a broom

4 Doing the washing
Washing machines and dishwashers use electricity and perhaps hot water too
Using water taken from the stream

5 Travelling
You have to fill the car up with petrol first
Go on foot or riding an animal

6 Relaxing
Watch TV. Not only the TV set use electricity, the studios that make the programme and the transmitting equipment that broadcasts them also need electricity.

In 1879, the American inventor Thomas Edison came up with the electric light bulb. He opened the first electricity generating plant, its steam boilers fuelled by a combination of wood and coal.

After that, more and more power stations fired by coal, gas and oil were generating more electricity for more factories and buildings. Today, worldwide demand for electricity - one of our greatest fuel-users - is estimated to rise by 250 % by 2025.