Dec 14

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 12/14/2002 12:00 AM Sayidiman Suryohadiprojo, Former Governor National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas), Jakarta There is no life that can be sustained without energy. The struggle for survival is in fact a competition to capture useful energy and secure its continued flow. In our universe the sun is an important source of energy for our planet. In a book titled Human Origins, George Grant MacCurdy wrote that the degree of civilization of any epoch, people or group of peoples, is measured by the ability to utilize energy for human advancement or needs. Walter Youngquist writes that the average American uses each year 8,000 pounds of oil, 4,700 pounds of natural gas, 5,150 pounds of coal, and one-tenth of a pound of uranium. We are also confronted by inevitable realities. There is the ""first law of thermodynamics"" which states that the total energy content of the universe is constant; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But then the ""second law on read more .....