Sustainability is defined as patterns of economic, environmental, and social progress that meet the needs of the present day without reducing the capacity to meet future need. Sustainable energy refers to those patterns
of energy production and use that can support society's present and future needs with the least life-cycle economic, environmental, and social costs. Life-cycle is the cost of a product from acquiring its original raw
material to manufacturing, transporting, and using it to its final demolition and disposal (Randolf and Masters 3).
Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley (2005) that energy is as the top of the list of problems in our quest for sustainability. In his view, enough available, affordable and clean, efficient energy would enable resolution
of all other problems and is a key to achieving a sustainable world system (Randolf and Masters 4). But the supply of non-renewable energy sources - petroleum, natural gas, and coal - is at risk as the majority of our energy
consumed (83% in 2009) is being generated from these sources (Renewable & Alternative Fuels). Meanwhile, the population of the earth is predicted to rise to 9 billion by 2050, expanding global demand for energy, especially
However, there are those who believe that over-consumption is more of an environmental threat than population, as expressed by Fred Pearce, in an article at e360 at Yale, "...a small portion of the world's people - those
in the affluent, developed world - use up most of the Earth's resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions (Pearce)." He goes on to mention the work of Stephen Pacala, director of Princeton Environment
Institute, who calculates that the world's richest half-billion people - that is about 7 percent of the global population - are responsible for 50 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, while the poorest 50
percent are responsible for 7 percent of the emissions (Pearce).
Mo...