Nate Lewis Presentation Reflection

The Nate Lewis presentation was very informative. I felt like I learned a lot about the different types of energies and all the consequences of each one.
Nate Lewis said that globally we use 13 trillion watts and that the international currency for energy is joules. Electricity consumption globally goes down 2% each year, and only 10% of total energy is electricity. It is expected that in 2050 we will need 28 TW (terawatts).
He stated that oil consumption is directly related to global warming and explain that because of it 20% of corral reefs have been bleached. Also global warming is cause a lot ice to melt, if Greenland melted the sea level would go up 20ft worldwide, that could possibly flood places with low elevation.
He brought up an interesting point which was carbon sequestration which is basically when the store a bunch of CO2 in a deep hole in the earth or in the deep ocean which will change the ph of the ocean water making it acidic.
He also talked about all different types of alternative energies, like hydroelectricity which is energy made by water. It has 4.6 TW potential in the US but some have an issue with it because it does not allow the fishes to swim upstream. Biomass has 6-7 TW potential, wind energy has 2 TW potential and geothermal has 11.6 continental potential.
He concluded with solar energy, he thought solar would be the best solution because it was one of the highest amount of potential energy, which is 600 TW, 90 of them coming from photosynthesis. One hour of sunlight approximately equals 14 TW for a year. The only problem is that solar panels are expensive but people need to realize that in the long run it will actually save you money since sunlight is free. The real problem is that a way to conserve the energy is yet to be figured out because otherwise we will have no energy when there is no sun shining, like at night and winter.