Environmental Sustainable Design (ARC1413/BLD60203)

Reflective Research Essay

Title : Impacts of Non-Renewable Energy towards Environment, Social and Economy

Tutor : Mr Sivaraman

Group :

Name ID

Tan Chiew Nee 0303531

Lai Jia Yi 0315957

Sharon Lim Yu Jung 0313377

Due to the overpowering of mankind towards mother nature as we pace towards modernisation, more natural resources are extracted to feed the needs of human energy consumption. In this context, non-renewable energy such as oil, natural gas and nuclear energy are considered the major energy sources throughout the world. However, the tolls it take from environmental, social and economic point of views can never be underestimated.

Natural gas is one of the widely source of electricity generation for most of the developed countries. It is a type of fossil fuel formed when the layers of buried organic substances are constantly exposed to very high temperature and intense heat over a long period of time, the organic substances become lighter and more volatile which then later forming the gas. Natural gas as one of the major energy sources has become more demanded as it supplies more than 20% of the world energy.

Generally, natural gas posed possible risks during drilling and extraction of the gases from wells and the transportation through pipelines, whereby the leakage of methane can easily lead to explosions and induce other pollutions in chain reaction.

The leaked methane has become air pollutants and greenhouse gases that leads to greenhouse effect. Some of the drilling sites have been tested with contaminated air or bad air quality, causing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Besides, large amount of water is needed for the drilling of wellbore, or during the hydraulic fracturing process and the improper disposal of this waste water has contaminated the water sources around the well sites with high concentration of salts and metal. Some residences around the vicinity even suffered from sickness after consuming the water.

The estimated growth of the natural gas consumption by the world, increasing rapidly Source: greenpointenergy

Emission of gases at the power plant station. (source:Discovery News)

A glass of water collected from a residential well near to a drilling site (source:Fire Earth)

Moreover, poor management of storage, drilling sites and transporting pipelines of natural gas often leads to leakage or spills, causing explosions and inferno that endanger the wildlife besides putting human's life at risk.

One of the biggest explosion happened due to gas leakage in human history is the explosion in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It was caused by the leakage of underground gas delivering pipes. It caused severe damages to the roads, households, injured 321 people with 32 deaths. The explosion was ignited 3 hours after the report of suspicious smell of gas and white smoke coming out from the manholes near Kaisyuan 3rd Road and Ersheng 1st Road in Cianjhen District, suggesting its severe impacts. (Time, 2014)

This incident had caused the government to suffer a big loss of around NT$1.9billion, including the high expenses of rebuilding the roads and shoplots. Besides, the disaster had affected the Taiwan tourism industry. As the city is now severely damaged and a long period of time is needed to rebuild the vicinity.

In local context, the largest local natural gas refinery is located in Bintulu, Sarawak. The electricity production from natural gas in Malaysia took up to about 60% in 2009, a major power resources in the country. Although there is no severe cases aroused in our history, however the risk of gas related calamities still lies within, if there is no tight proper management and long term observation on the growth of usage and extraction of natural

The rate of incident caused by petroleum and natural gas transportation. source: National review.

The bar chart shows the fatalities rate caused by workplace fire and explosions. source: Eenews.net

The raging fire of Kaoshiung Explosion. Source: Youtube

gas. Malaysia might ended up being part of those countries which faced the issues of contaminated air and water.

In June 2014, an explosion was reported at the Sabah-Sarawak gas pipeline in Bukit Beriwan, Lawas, damaged an coverage area of about 300 metres in radius.

Lawas Acting Police Chief Mutang Nawat has stated the possibility of gas leakage from the pipelines led to the explosion (The Borneo Post, 2014). It was later reported that around 100 villagers have moved away from their home due to the fear of another round of explosion. Although there was no injury or death reported, but it has left a big impact to the society especially the residents living around as it left them living in fear. (The Malaysian Insider, 2014) The estimated loss is RM1.6 billion.

Along with natural gas, petroleum is considered as one of the lucrative energy source in the world, found in natural oil deposits underground. When it has been extracted from the ground, it is known as crude oil and mixed with other compounds. The hydrocarbon molecules that make up the crude oil are highly dangerous due to its poisonous chemical constituents. Hence, it became one of the main sources of the environmental degradation in the world. According to the International Energy Agency, the world demand for crude oil on current trend is expected to grow from 87 million barrels a day in 2010 to 99million barrels per day by 2035 due to the fast developing economies. The dominance of crude oil is creating the conditions for distributing large amounts of poisonous constituents into the ecosystems around the world.

The major issue aroused by oil extraction is oil spills, which occur during the transportation of crude oil either via tanker or pipelines when there is leakage or accidents, releasing huge amounts of oil into the land and the sea in the form of oil slicks, which contributes to the pollution of the marine coastal environments. It is a serious environmental disaster, often leading to fatal and long-term impacts on the environment and socioeconomic activities of the affected area.

The Bukit Beriwan Explosion, the bright orange glow of fire can be seen burning vigorously. source: The Malaysian Insider

The aftermath of the Explosion. Source: www.bintulu.org

For example, the Mexico gulf oil spill, one of the largest accidental spill in the world history. The Gulf oil spill disaster had created a huge ecological impact not just because of the volume of the oil spilled, which is approximately 1.82 million gallons of dispersant, but also the spread over of the gulf water from the incident’s location towards the land, which are aided by the air blow by wind and the sea breeze. The Gulf of Mexico also hosted the regional's most productive fisheries industry, thus the incident hampered their economy as the catches declined sharply after the accident. Also, the Gulf's wetlands, which comprise about half of the country's total wetland area, and its other marine and estuary ecosystems are important habitats for both wildlife and commercial species (US EPA 2010a). According to NOAA, commercial fisheries brought in $659 million in shellfish and finfish in 2008, and over 3 million people took recreational fishing trips in the Gulf that year. But soon after the spill, the recreational fishing trips from the Atchafalaya Delta to Mobile Bay was forced to close down for an emergency cleaned up.

Besides, the oil spill also had a significant impacts on the flora fauna in Gulf’s wetland and coastal. It affected them both internally and externally, either by interacting through the ingestion of oil or exposing through contacting with the oil. When animals like gannets, brown pelicans and other shore birds are covered by oil slicks, the oil will matted

The leakage of crude oil which unleashed a deadly stain to the gulf of Mexico. Photo credit: Gather & Consumer Energy Report.

The approximate oil slick location from 22th of April to 15th of May, 2010. Image source: NOAA

down their fur or feathers, resulting lose insulation. By 1 July, response teams had collected 594 stranded sea turtles, of which 441 had already died (CBD 2010).

In local context, there is constantly growing dangers of the grounding and collisions at the sea around Malaysia coastal area due to the growing industrialization. The straits of Malacca recognized as one of the most economically, strategically and the busiest shipping lanes which are very important to the trade route. One of the big scale spills in Malaysia is the collision between an oil tanker and LPG carrier offshore from Tanjung Kukup, which is located in the straits of Malacca, placing the ecotourism industry around the area such as Pangkor, Penang and Langkawi at risk. The tourists that comes to Tanjung Kukup were mostly attracted by its beautiful beaches and also the cultural exhibition of the area. Since Tanjung Kukup is using its seaside hotel and water sport activities as their primary income source, tourism had become the sectors where the greatest impacts are felt.

The oil slicks are also spotted covering on the mangrove roots along the beach. When the roots have been covered up by oil, the plants were unable to perform respiration, causing it to decay slowly. When the mangrove tree dies, it would affects the whole ecosystem around the area as it provides an important breeding place for many of the species including fish, crab, prawns and other marine animals and also function as a natural wave barrier and compacting the soil to prevent the shore against erosion. Hence, the oil slicks are causing a direct impact to the ecosystem in TanjungKukup.

Victims of the Bp oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Credits: Photographer Charlie Riedel

Turtle suffering from the oil spill incident. Image source: www.dosomething.org

Mangrove roots coated in oil slicks. Credits:

Turtle covered with oil due to the BP oil slick. Source: www.dosomething.org

Pelican suffered from oil slick, totally losing its sense of direction. Source: www.boston.com

Mangroves swamp suffered from oil slicks. Source: www.eoearth.org

A heron sits dying after being trapped in an oil slicked mangrove swamp. Source: www.eoearth.org

Lastly, considered as the fastest growing energy source due to its high efficiency and energy output, nuclear energy is generated via nuclear fission of radioactive isotopes. Although technologies and safety measures had improved, its negative impacts can never be underestimated learning from the radioactive accident in 3/11 Fukushima.

Devastatingly quiet, signs of human normalcy abruptly vanished, left only a desolated land. This was the sight of the vicinity of Fukushima, a city desolated by the Nuclear Power Plant disaster in the 3/11 earthquake in Japan, whereby the magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that reached a height of 39 meters. The earthquake caused an nuclear reactor's fuel storage sites exploded, followed by several infernos and leakage (Enger and Smith, 2013). According to a report by the Japanese Science Ministry, radioactive cesium had contaminated 30,000 square kilometres of Japanese land with an exposure rate of 1 milisievert per year, which exceeded the safe bar (Starr, 2013).

For environment, radiation being released contaminated the atmosphere and seawater not only within the vicinity of Japan but also the Pacific Ocean. Based on Stallard (2014), researchers found that instead of killing or obviously harming the organisms, the low-dose radiation effects were insidious. Once a large amount of radioactive cesium entered our ecosystem, it soon became ubiquitous, contaminating water bodies, soil, plants and animals. Recently, many Japanese food supplies had been contaminated. Radioactive cesium bioaccumulates, bioconcentrates and biomagnifies as it moves up the food chain (Starr, 2013). In rice, low gamma radiation level in the prefecture began to alter healthy seedlings on a genetic level in only three days, hampering the activation of self defence traits and the DNA replication.

The rescue team searching for victims . Image source: News Pictures/MCP/Rex Feature from The Telegraph.UK

The notorious tsunami surged towards he land, engulfed vehicles and buildings. Image source: mendozapost.com

Mutated eggplant harvested in Japan. Images source: matrixworldhr.com

Mutated daisy with enlarged stigma. Images source: matrixworldhr.com

Tumour growing on a fish. Images source: matrixworldhr.com

As written by Roslin (2012), in June,56 percent of Japanese fish catches tested by the Japanese government were contaminated with cesium-137 and 134, both products of nuclear fission and among the batch, 9.3% catches exceeded the Japanese standard ceiling for cesium, which is 100 becquerels per kilogram. All these changes affects the harmony of biodiversity and ecosystem.

In social point of view, the health of residents in the vicinity is the main concern, due to the release of Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 to the air. Daily ingestion of contaminated foods will lead to bioaccumulation in the heart and endocrine tissues, as well as kidneys, small intestines, pancreas, spleen and liver, inducing cancer, whereby children are more susceptible to as compared to adults (Starr, 2013). People living within the 20km radius scope from the plant were evacuated to reduce the probability of Iodine-131 contamination through inhalation or ingestion whereby the isotopes will accumulate in thyroid gland, causing thyroid cancer ( Enger and Smith, 2013).

According to Starr (2013), the total economic loss ranged from $250-$500 billion US dollars. In the first quarter of 2011, Japan's GDP shrink by 0.7% in 2011, revealed on a report by International Monetary Fund (IMF). The total damage of to agriculture, forest and fisheries was estimated to hit the astounding 2.3 trillion yen par as 80% of the paddy fields were swiped by tsunami and 20% of field lands were inundated.

In local context, nuclear energy is not yet employed in Malaysia recently. However, in June 2009, Malaysian government decided to make nuclear energy as an alternative power source to cope the sharp increase in electricity demand in coming years as predicted, especially for Peninsular Malaysia and the implementation was aspired to be in 2021 (Ghazali, n.d.). Although advanced technologies are invented and safety measurements are tightened, still the risk of disastrous calamities can never be underestimated, just as the incidents of Fukushima Daiichii.

Victims evacuated to temporary shelter. Image Source: hc.edu.tw.com

Paramedics measuring the radiation content. Image souce: que.es.com

Babies and children are susceptible to radiation exposure. Image source: Galleryhip.com

Taking example from the Lynas issue, it is clear that we oppose any radioactive products

being produced in our homeland, including nuclear reactors. This situation whereby Lynas company built and run a rare earth refinery in Gebeng Pahang, reside by dense population of 700,000 residences within a 30km scope, outraged the nation, inducing rallies and

solidarity walks throughout the nation. The refinery produces 91,600 m³ of radioactive waste per year, equivalent to four 4 stories height football fields. Every hour, 99,344Nm³ of gaseous waste is discharged into the air, along with a daily release of 12,000m³ waste water into the sea.

From environmental view, possible leakage of waste storage can pollute the vicinity's water table and threaten the marine ecosystem as mutation, infertility and mass organisms' death will occur. When it rains, rainwater carrying radioactive substances from atmosphere shower on our plants, livestock and us, causing genetic changes and biological threats. From social health view, the accumulation of radioactive substances can cause brain diseases, permanent genetic damages and birth defects, leukemia, lung cancer and etc. Since the region is no longer safe for human residences, the vicinity's farm, fisheries, plantation and tourism industries will all be affected, soon devastating the local economy (Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas Organisation, 2011).

To conclude, instead of putting our nation's safety on risk, the utilisation of safe and renewable alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind and tidal energy are strongly agreed. As these natural resources are bestowed to our tropical nation graciously, we should harness these resources to solve our issues from a local context, rather than following the stream of global modernisation unconsciously. Seda (Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia) has embarked on a new project to produce a national wind map so as to include wind energy as another renewable resource, which is a good initiative (The Star, 2013). The authorities should focus on the development of renewable energy resources to

The Stop Lynas campaign to oppose the operations. Image source: Penang Monthly.com

Poster of harms Lynas brought. Image source: www.gwm.com.my

be less dependent on non-renewable energy to reduce pollutions, safeguard human's life and sustain our economy. In fact, most of the damages comes from mankind's carelessness, negligence and selfishness, sacrificing mother nature to pay for our destructive behavior. However, it is fortunate to have a lot of organizations and initiatives which are uniting people to strive for a better future. Thus, it is our responsibility to make Malaysia a sustainable and safe place to live in.

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