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Importance Of Energy Efficiency Essay

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Energy Efficiency

Humans today are using much more electricity than we need to in our houses and this is impacting our world more then we realise. Although electricity is a huge advantage to humans it has the complete opposite effects on our environment. By using more electricity, we are using more of the earth’s resources and if we keep going down this road then we are going to run out. The solution for this mass overuse of energy is to build houses which are more energy efficient. Features like LED lightbulbs, insulating and even positioning your house in the correct position for natural airflow instead of using air conditioning are all ways we can help improve this problem.
What does energy efficiency mean?
“Energy efficiency means using less energy to provide the same service.” An example of this is where a LED lightbulb uses less electrical energy than a traditional incandescent lightbulb to produce the same amount of light. The phrase 'energy efficiency' can also be described as any kind of energy-saving measure. (1)
How is electricity made?
In 1831, scientist Michael Farday discovered the first form of electricity. He found that when a magnet moved inside a copper coil it created what is known as an electric current. This invention is known as a turbine generator. Even today, in full sized power stations this simple invention is still used and works very effectively. These power stations create mass amounts of energy to turn the turbines. Most of the time the energy is made from the heat, for example when coal is burned. More environmentally friendly power stations use wind or flowing water to turn these turbines. This is known as renewable energy because it will not run out, unlike when oil and coal are used.(3)
How does the use of electricity impact our world?
Environmental Affects
Although humans use electricity for almost everything we do, we don’t realise that this is harming our environment in many ways. The production of electricity is causing a major loss of the earth’s natural resources such as:
- Loss of coal and natural gases
- Deforestation for mining (loss of trees)
- Loss of habitat for rare and threatened species
Another environmental issue resulting from the production of electricity

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