Although I am reading constantly for school these days, I haven't written anything in ages, and it is really starting to bother me. I had writers' block for such a long time in the past, finally beat it, and then now I find myself beginning to slip back towards having it again.
This week I was in Rome for an energy conference(http://www.energymeeting.it/REM2008/it/index.html).
It was my first time visiting Rome, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. The city felt big and spacious, but on the other hand the ancientness and beauty of the buildings was almost overwhelming.
The speeches at the conference were fascinating. The speakers were drawn from Italy, Russia, the United States, and the Middle East. The speeches spanned such topics as Energy Security, Gas, Oil, Climate Change, and Nuclear Power.
One thing that caused me to be slightly taken aback was that one of the speakers noted that China is building the majority of the new nuclear power capacity in the world. Naturally, at the moment, China is heavily reliant on coal power, and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from China and India are projected to make up the majority of the new greenhouse emissions in the next 30 years, which will destroy the world's environment if not stopped. China is projected to add at least 60 gigawatts of nuclear power production capacity. While I knew this in the back of my head, the reminder was much appreciated.
At the conference, there was a speaker from the IEA who spoke on climate change. I was somewhat dismayed by the fact that he spoke only about two possible climate change scenarios- one in which atmospheric carbon dioxide would be stopped at 550 parts per million, and another, the more 'optimistic' blue scenario, in which the atmospheric C02 would be stopped around 450 parts per million. The 350 parts per million green scenario was not mentioned, and this was rather disconcerting to me, as this is the more or less ideal scenario that should be aimed for when controlling climate change.
So many things to do these days, I only hope that I have time to put everything together at the end of the day.
