What is energy? Energy brought me all the way from the Antarctic to Britain. It means I can swim fast and catch my fish. It gets you out of bed in the morning. Energy means that birds can fly, tigers can roar, wind can blow, sun can shine, cars can go fast, factories can make things, light bulbs can glow and your computer can work. Without energy, there would be nothing: no life, no movement, no light, no penguins … nothing.

Where do we get energy from? Almost all energy, so far as we are concerned, comes from the Sun. The Sun warms our planet and makes plants grow.




Plants are clever things because they can use the Sun’s energy not only to make them grow, but also to make energy stores. Most plants make seeds, some of which grow into new plants. And animals like you humans eat them - you know, wheat seeds make into bread; maize into cornflakes and so on. This means you get your energy from eating plants, or by eating other animals like cows which have fed off plants. I get my energy from eating fish - which ate smaller fish which ate shrimpy things which ate (you got it!) tiny plants called plankton. This is called a food chain.






Our waste products eventually all go back to plants where they start the cycle again, fuelled by energy from the Sun.

Where do fuels to make energy like electricity come from? This is where you humans are different from all other life. You have learned how to use energy to power machines like cars, planes and power stations so you don’t have to work so much and so you can stay warm without fat, fur or feathers that other animals have. You get this energy mostly by digging it out of the ground, releasing ancient energy stores - fossil fuels - made by billions of tiny plants and stored by animals which lived millions of years ago. You know what these fuels are, I’m sure: coal, oil and gas. All of them come from underground, inside the Earth's crust.

What’s the problem? What you don’t see so easily is the effects of burning all these fossil fuels. Most of you don’t live near huge power station chimneys belching smoke, but no one can escape the noise and stink made by cars, trucks and aeroplanes. Did you know that there are over 500,000,000 cars and trucks in the world, all belching fumes? Then there’s the planes, ships and factories, all gushing smoke and poisonous gases into the air we all breathe.
What happens to this pollution? And just what is it?

Pollution Pollution from burning fuels to make energy isn’t always obvious. Some of the gases stink - yuk! Some pollution is clouds of black soot particles. Some pollutants are deadly poisonous and can kill people. But the main pollution is a colourless heavy gas called carbon dioxide (often shortened to CO₂).

Greenhouse Earth You’ve probably heard about the ‘greenhouse effect’. If you walk into a greenhouse on a sunny day, it’s often very warm inside because the Sun’s heat is trapped by the glass. Carbon dioxide gas pumped into the air by burning fuels has just the same effect: it traps the Sun’s heat near the surface of the Earth making the air and oceans slightly warmer. This is what scientists call global warming. And global warming, by making the Earth warmer than it should be, is making the seas and oceans take up more space. And it’s making icy places like my home, the Antarctic, melt away. Lots of my penguin friends are dying because of this and because of pollution.

This warming means that the level of the sea goes up everywhere with lots of floods. Warming also means more dangerous weather with more and bigger hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes and cyclones. That means lots of people will get killed - or go hungry because their land is flooded, washed away or their crops spoiled. Other places will get hot and dry as people cut down more and more forests.

I don’t want to see these things happening and I don’t suppose you do either. So what can we do? Don’t worry! I’ll give you some ideas in a minute …

Nuclear power — Help at hand? Sadly not. Nuclear power doesn't add much to global warming — but it does create other types of wastes which are particularly nasty because they are radioactive.

Radioactivity gets made inside nuclear power plants as the fuel - uranium metal - splits into other elements which give off radiation. So far, no one has worked out a way to safely dispose of the waste this makes, so at present it's all stored — huge quantities of it. And if the power plant goes wrong, terrible disasters can happen. On April 26, 1986, a nuclear reactor at a place called Chernobyl (Ukraine, eastern Europe) blew up. It was one of the worst industrial accidents ever. At least 2,500 people have died and thousands more, mostly young kids, got cancer. Many more people will die because of the radiation and a big area of what used to be good farm land is now so radioactive that no one can go there.

Facts about Radiation Radiation is scary because no one can tell it’s there without special detectors. Animals like you and me have senses which means we can see, hear, touch, taste, smell — but we can’t tell if something is radioactive (gives off radiation). Waste products from making nuclear bombs and from nuclear power plants are very radioactive indeed. If you happened to fall into a nuclear reactor, you would die almost instantly. Lower radiation levels can also make people die - over a matter of days or, by causing illnesses like cancer, over a period of years. Radiation comes from new elements (uranium fuel is an element; so is carbon and so is oxygen) which get made during nuclear reactions. These elements, called isotopes, often only exist for a few weeks or years. But some last for hundreds of thousands of years which is why no one really knows what to do about getting rid of them. Isotopes have something called a ‘half-life’. One dangerous one which got spewed out from the wrecked Chernobyl reactor was an iodine isotope. This has a half-life of 8 days which means that if you start with a chunk the size of a can of beans, in 8 days its size will have halved; a half can of beans. Where does all that missing stuff go in 8 days? That’s the nasty bit: the radiation. And it’s dangerous to life like you and me because it’s made of tiny particles which travel very fast. So if you stand near something radioactive, you’re being hit by trillions of tiny ‘bullets’ all the time. You can’t feel it but these ‘bullets’ damage the cells in your body. A lot of damage breaks them and you die. Less damage messes up their genes and causes cancer and kills you slowly. Like I said, nasty stuff.

Renewable energy Where can you get free renewable energy? Just look up above you when you’re outside on a sunny day … Yes, the Sun gives our planet far more energy than people use as fossil fuels. Its heat drives the mightiest engine of all: the Earth’s climate. It makes you hot when it shines but it also makes winds and waves. And people can use all these things to make electricity or heat energy for homes. And most important, unlike fossil fuels this sort of energy doesn't damage the Earth and will last for ever!

• Sun power (solar power) can make electricity by using things called photovoltaic cells (often just called PV - easier to say) which fit on the roofs or walls of your houses or apartment blocks. Some special cars can run on PV electricity and there’s even a race across Australia in which the cars run only on solar power




• Hydroelectric power makes electricity by using the energy from falling water. The water comes from big dams across rivers, and flows down great tubes to drive electricity generators. Most of the world’s biggest rivers are already used for this
• Sun power can heat water in solar panels (like radiators but instead of giving out heat, they grab it from the Sun). This is then stored in a big tank so you can have hot showers and so on. Solar collectors can pick up the sun's heat even on cloudy days
• Solar power can also directly heat houses in cold countries - when they’re properly designed to make best use of it. So far, not many are



• Wind power can drive a turbine with a propeller (like some airplanes have) and make electricity. Wind power is getting really important in some countries like Denmark


• Wave power can also drive generators but this is still a very new idea. Just a few experimental machines are in use today.
• Tides - you know, when the sea goes up and down twice a day - can drive generators too. There's just one example of this in action at a place called La Rance in France. Other parts of the world with big tides could be useful too, but a big dam has to be built to trap the moving seawater
• Gas for cooking and heating can be made from human sewage and farm animals' waste. (Phew! Yuk! … but very useful)
• Grow your own fuel: sugar and coppice. In Brazil, people grow sugar cane plants and use them to make a type of alcohol (not the same as in drinks like whisky or beer) which they use to power almost half the country’s cars. In other countries, people plant special trees (like willow) which grow fast and you can cut them down without killing them - so they keep on re-growing. This is called coppicing. You can use the wood for burning to make heat as well as other things. Because plants and trees soak up CO₂ like sponges, making the carbon into wood and putting back oxygen into the air, people can ‘grow’ fuel without adding CO₂ pollution to the air
• Fuel cells make electricity directly from hydrogen, a very light gas. The cells don’t burn the hydrogen. Instead it reacts with oxygen (in the air) to make pure water and electricity. So the ‘waste’ is just water. Soon cars will run with fuel cells - they are silent and make no pollution. They can also make power for houses so there’d be no need for big polluting power stations. One way people can make hydrogen is by using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Scientists are still searching for a good way to do this. Alcohol (called methanol) from sugar cane can also be used to power fuel cells, so you can 'grow' the fuel

Fair shares: Some people are very greedy and want more than their fair share of everything. So they grab it, leaving little or nothing for anyone else. This is true of energy with people in rich countries like the United States, Canada, European countries and Australia. They use much more energy than is sensible or fair. Fossil fuels will run out completely in not very many years but before they do, the damage to the Earth’s climate will have been done. But wait a moment. That doesn’t mean you’ve all got to grow fur or feathers. It means that you - you, your friends and families - could do several things:

• be more careful with energy and save as much as you can by not driving around, flying and having the heating or air conditioning turned up so high. If you’re cold, wear more clothes. People can also save a lot by making clever buildings which can make their own energy and don't waste the energy they use



• use your own energy to do things - cycling, walking, running, cooking (not fast-food - junky stuff. Yuk!)


• find out more about renewable energy and pester parents and friends to get involved in using these or in trying to get something going where you live.

I'm off to catch a fish for my dinner. I'll be walking (okay, waddling!) and then swimming to do that, not jumping in a car. What will you be doing? I hope that whatever you do, you'll think carefully about it first.
Remember: how you choose to use energy affects all life on Earth so think before you act.

What do you think about energy and how it should be used? Have you any good ideas about what we can do to make things better? If you do, please write to me. As long as your message is sensible and friendly, I promise to reply. I will also put your message on my Friends page. Click to email me now! Please don't delete the subject line of your email which should read: "Energy message for Tiki".

If you found my energy guide helpful, why not tell your friend(s) about it. It's very easy. Just type your friend's email address into the box and click 'send'. There's no tricks, no junk mail, no ads. Just a simple email from you to your friend. You can add your own message if you want.

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