Singapore's Global Warming Policies

If you had a big globe with a coat of varnish on it, the thickness of that varnish, relative to the globe, is pretty much the same as the thickness of the earth's atmosphere as compared with the Earth itself. Presently, the composition of this atmosphere is being changed by chemicals and toxic gases, leading to global warming. In this context, Singapore has always directed her policies towards the reduction of gases such as CO2 and CO by the use of efficient power generation and mass public transport.

The first problem, is the power generation in Singapore, which consumes more than half of its fuel. In view of this, the government has adopted a combined cycle method using steam and gas turbines. This has increased the power generation efficiency from 38% to 44%. Moreover, the fuel oil powered plants have been replaced by duel-fuel plants, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 by 37%.

Another problem is that of transportation, which uses 16% of the country's fuel. Singapore has a very good network of public transport, and the government has promoted it's use for the past few years. The ownership of private cars are also discouraged through high taxation and the number is controlled by the highly priced quota. Use of alternate fuel and green cars have been encouraged by providing tax incentives due to which more people have started to use green cars in the present.

In short, Singapore has attended to the problem of global warming and has adopted various strategies to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. This has led to the growth of clean energy like biomass and solar cells, which are the main sources of energy for the future. As Al Gore said in his documentary of 'The Inconvenient Truth', "The solutions are in our hands. We just need to have the determination to make them happen".

References:

Energy for growth – National Energy Policy Report

Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore

ISBN 978-981-05-9512-8 Nov 2007

Picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3253/2319745704_211fef0bb0_o.jpg

The expanding world of engineers

Almost all the things we see and use today including buildings, flyovers, bridges, televisions and computers are made or designed by engineers. Without them, there would be almost no technological development in the world. It is only due to their systemic and holistic approach in designing solutions which has led to such a rapid technological boom.

Universities are the main bastions for engineers which provide them with the essential training and experience they require for their job. The difference lies in the way the engineering course is different from other courses like Arts and Social Sciences. The lectures for engineering students are more focused on real-life problems and how to solve them in a systematic way. Comparing this with lectures of other faculties, these lectures are less philosophical and are more problem-based. Also, the tutorials have more word problems rather than just solving direct sums and the labs serve as a platform for hands-on training and experience of problems based on real-life situations. The internships also gives the engineer an invaluable experience to his career.

Besides all these, another necessity for an engineer is his experience. Without this, he is merely a student. Experience provides the engineer with knowledge on how to tackle situations and how to think in a different way. This in turn makes an engineer think in a systematic way to solve the problem. It is not their skill which makes them premium, but their inventiveness and their way of approach and thinking.

The Burj Al Arab, Taipei tower and the Large Hedron Collider- nothing could have been designed, if it were not for the engineers. Their way of systemic analysis of complex information and their holistic approach to designing solutions, has made this possible. In this context, the training provided by the university, to the engineering students is indispensable and has created a cohort of engineers who can now build just anything from scratch.