Why is energy important?

Peter Hall from Scion explains why we need large quantities of carbon neutral energy.

Energy is everywhere. Anything we eat or use has energy embodied in it. Every object we produce required energy to make and/ or energy to transport, and the energy demands are closely linked to the economic growth of a country.

Points of interest ‘Carbon neutral’ is a term used to describe a product (or process) that does not release more carbon into the atmosphere than its capacity to consume or absorb carbon in the course of its lifetime. A business that aims to be carbon neutral will try to offset their carbon emissions by, for example, planting trees or using products produced from sustainable resources.

Transcript

PETER HALL Energy is very, very important because everything that we consume, use, eat is energy or has energy embodied in it. A piece of paper has used energy or had energy used to create it and transport it to where it is, so although it only contains a little bit of energy, there has actually been a huge amount of energy used to get it to where it is. And it’s the same with the chair you sit on and the shampoo you wash your hair with. So energy is embodied in everything that we use, and in order to have economic growth, we need to have lots of energy and preferably nice and cheap energy. So not only do we need carbon neutral energy, we need large quantities of it.

Acknowledgements: TVNZ Television Archive Ian Wilson