Electrical lives: Using electricity

Electricity, the energy released by flow of negatively charged particles is a really important part of our lives now. Just a few decades has made such a huge difference. 

The world has evolved from oil lamps, candles, then kerosene lamps to now almost only electricity. The scientists had worked in candles to provide a base for the important invention electricity. This is one invention that has boosted us for further inventions, and now as Kenneth Lay says, “They can’t do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.” Almost everything today functions using electricity, people cannot imagine their lives without lights, fans, TVs, computers, video games, movies, phone and much more.

All of us use electricity but most would not even have thought of what it is and how it works. Well, electricity is the movement of electrons and is also known as electrical current. All the devices that use electricity are a part of closed circuits which allow the electrical energy to pass through the appliance to make it work. Well, it is not possible to define electricity in more words than this.

Today’s world is vulnerable to face a lot of problems if there is no electricity. There are many things in this world that would be affected without electricity. This includes industries, offices, daily chores and almost everything. All industries require electricity to function. Without industries functioning, humans would not get their daily requirements from the general stores. If electricity is not available, eventually the world would turn back into how it was in the 1700s, 1800s without much electricity. First of all, there would be no lights meaning people would go to bed early. The only light that would remain in the night would be the light of kerosene lamps or candles. Even worse, there would be no fans, air-conditioners or heaters to keep the house environment cool or warm. These days a temporary period of electricity loss can cause havoc. An example of such an event took place in Mumbai, India on 26th July 2005 when the city was flooded and the entire city was blacked-out for two days. This is how it would be without electricity for a world functioning only on electricity.

Electricity plays another important part in our lives by providing us entertainment and communication media such as theatre, TV, video games, mobile phones and much more. Communication media have connected people globally and made such a big world look small. Some of these have also caused negative effects for some people. E.g. more indoor entertainment is causing children to play less outdoors and hence they are becoming weaker. Their social interaction is reducing day by day with more time spent on gadgets thereby turning them into introverts.

Electricity has boosted economy of the whole world. Although it took almost a whole century to find a proper application of electricity, now it is the core of many industries. They have to shut down affecting the lives of many people if there is a power cut. Electricity has boosted the industry by producing goods at faster rates. This means that they are produced in larger quantities too. Productivity has improved several folds. 

Automation in several fields has become possible because of electricity giving a productivity of thousands of human beings by one machine. In several industries, nights have also become productive due to shift-based working hours. Urbanization requires huge amounts of construction. The required heavy machinery is run by electricity. Hence, as more and more industries adopted electricity, economy got a boost.

Electricity is not always used in the right way which is why it has its own disadvantages too along with its several advantages and applications. Firstly, people have stopped living simple life and cannot live without electricity for even a short period of time. They are missing the pleasure of a simple life and being a part of nature. Most of the urban people cannot even carry out their daily lives without electricity unlike rural people.

But overall, electricity has affected people all over the world – from poor to rich and from rural to urban. Without electricity there cannot be development at the required pace. Rural areas without sufficient supply of electricity are severely impaired in development and education. Children cannot study well in the candle light or kerosene lamp light. Electricity has made a drastic change in this field. The rural electrification campaign is helping governments of several countries to provide electricity to rural areas. This has already been up in Sub-Sahara Africa, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, USA and Jamaica as individual nation campaigns.

From the older times, electricity consumption has also increased due to powering of a lot of places in the world.

Economically, electricity has had a huge impact. As we can see in the above graph, from the time of 1980 when electricity was used very less compared to now, economy would have grown too. Increasing demand for electricity is forcing more and more power generation. This is resulting in lot of resources to be consumed causing damage to environment in several ways.

Socially, electricity has had an impact on the community too. People in urban and rural areas are feeling more enlightened from the time electricity has arrived at their houses and in fact it is a gift to have electricity. They have shifted a level up in the society with electricity. The night life has increased significantly with people getting a chance to celebrate together at night. However, it is slowly getting impacted in the current times because people are getting addicted to electrical gadgets and are isolating themselves from the real friends. Also, although electricity is available, it is not cheap enough for all people to afford it, which is why electricity campaigns are being put up.

Environmentally, electricity has mostly had a bad impact. The sources of electricity used until now are not so environment-friendly. Coal mines and water turbines are using up the nature’s resources and there would not be any left for the future. These resources are obstructing the nature’s working. If sources of energy are completely shifted to resources such as solar, nuclear and wind energy then it would be better for the environment.

Electricity has brought major changes to the lives of people and now people cannot even live without electricity. It would continue to boost our economy until all the sources are run out. People take electricity for granted like oxygen in the air. One would not know its value until it dissipates. To avoid facing that, alternative forms of energy have to come into regular use at the earliest…

-Suhas

9/3/14