Blackout C an you imagine what would happen if our energy supply failed If suddenly nothing worked If the television you were watching or the computer on which you were working went dead If the lights didn’t come on in the evening and the heating didn’t work If in a few days all the food in the refrigerator and freezer started to rot and there was no fuel to run the car You would be cold hungry and pretty unhappy This is not a plot for a science fiction movie A blackout is a real possibility if we run out of energy Most of our energy supply comes from burning fuels such as coal oil or natural gas These fuels are called fossil fuels because they formed in the ground millions of years ago Fossil fuels can be burned to give us heat They can also be used to generate power in the form of electricity 4 If we run out of power we may have to read and work by candlelight again
Most power plants like this one currently burn fossil fuels These fuels are nonrenewable and will one day run out The world demand for energy is increasing As the number of people in the world grows more energy will be needed to run our homes power our factories and drive our cars Relying on energy from fossil fuels has two main problems Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the environment These are contributing to global warming an increase in temperatures around the world Fossil fuels are also nonrenewable This means that once we have used them all there will be none left The world is using so much energy that our fossil fuels supply will probably be used up in less than 200 years We need to find other new sources of energy We need to find them quickly before our present supplies run out
