Sustainability

Environmental impact

Energy is a vital element to ensure the prosperity and development of the globe. Without a regular energy inflow, cities, industries, transports and infrastructures would cease working. Moreover, the growth of the world economies and consumptions during the 20th century has been so far based mainly on the exploitation of fossil fuels: coal first, then oil and natural gas. Such energy sources are not renewable, and are finally bound to depletion. Moreover, they produce polluting substances during combustion, although the quantities differ according to the type of fuel. Among the most important substances, mention should be made of carbon oxides (COx), sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC) and  total solid particulates (TSP).
Such pollutants can harm human health and the environment if certain concentration limits in the air are exceeded. Dangers include the greenhouse effect, acid rains, the air pollution caused by motor vehicles in cities, all of which are serious problems discussed at length by experts and mass-media but which, more often than not, still need to be solved.
The commitment to safeguard the environment, the recurrent oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s and the current increase in the price of oil led the governments of many industrialised countries to increasingly foster the development of alternative energy sources to replace the current sources. Despite incentives and the speed of scientific and technological progress, current estimates point out that such alternative sources might be able to account for meaningful shares of the energy consumption only in many years’ time. Therefore, against a short and medium term background, great part of the energy necessary for mankind is very likely to be supplied by traditional fossil sources (especially oil and natural gas). In any case, human beings need to learn how to use the energy produced by means of fossil fuels in an even more effective way (by reducing waste and increasing the energy efficiency of the various production processes) and develop and implement technologies allowing a reduction in the polluting emissions in the air caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.