Control of Energy (1)

When was the fire discovered?

Most likely, forests burned as a result of lightning strikes were instrumental in man's first encounter with fire.

We took the word fire from Persian, for some reason we don't use it in Turkish. "od" or "õt" in Turkish. The letter "o" with "õ" accent. It is mentioned in Orkhon inscriptions. That is Turkish! It seems that we liked the word fire, which we learned from Persian later. We stopped saying "od". However, we continue to use our root words "od". "Od-cak" became "hearth" over time, and "ot-ung" became "wood" over time. "Õt-ağ" became a "room" over time and remained in "otağ". Both actually mean the place where there is a fire.

A fossil was found near Beijing in China during archaeological excavations between 1923 and 1927. It has been called the "People of Beijing". When the "Beijing man" was examined with carbon tests again in 2009, it was understood that it belonged to about 750,000 years ago.

It has been understood that the "Beijing man" is the oldest fossil found to use fire in a controlled way, due to the remains of a fire nearby and the animal fossils found in the cave nearby. A very important piece of evidence for world culture.

Beijing People

The "Beijing man" is the first to use energy in a controlled manner. In the thousands of years that have passed, we have discovered various energy sources and become the only living thing that dominates the world today.

The energy sources we mostly use today are fossil fuels. However, it has gradually begun to be understood that fossil fuels cause the only planet we can live on in the future to become an uninhabitable place in the future.

Even our beautiful country has begun to be affected by global warming. I think the forest fires of last year and the floods of the year are still in your memories. Just a week ago, we lost four lives in heavy rain in Ankara.

All countries are in a feverish search for energy sources that can replace fossil fuels. As we always do, we continue to pay for the world because we prefer to buy and use instead of researching it ourselves. However, solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal energy have started to come into use in our country. We even started to build a nuclear power plant, despite the huge risks involved.

Hydro-electric Power Plants (HEPP)

For example, I don't understand why we don't benefit from wave energy even though we are covered by sea on three sides.

We have also built quite a few dams on our rivers. In one of my articles, I talked about my internship at Atatürk dam during my university years. Recently, I found and watched an interview on YouTube of my elder brother, Haşim Kılıç, who was a civil engineer responsible for the dam body and was very experienced in dams, with whom I did my internship at that time, on YouTube. According to what he said in the interview, there is almost no room left to build dams on our rivers. After the internship, I could not find the opportunity to work at the dam construction site again, although I actually liked the internship very much. I preferred to start my career in another branch, as a static project engineer.

Let alone rivers, there is almost no room left even in streams. We have built many HEPPs, even on streams, which, in my opinion, are of no use and cause serious harm to the environment.

Unfortunately, all these infrastructures cannot meet the energy needs. Our energy needs are increasing day by day.

Nuclear Power Plants and Other Resources:

We have another problem besides the production of energy. We cannot fully control the energy obtained from dams or other energy sources. If it is a dry season, the amount of energy produced from the dams decreases. If the wind does not blow, the energy obtained from wind turbines decreases. Again, the energy obtained from solar panels varies according to weather conditions.

Nuclear power plants may be a solution, but I can say that we are too late for that. Since we cannot develop the technology ourselves, it is both very expensive and the risks of nuclear energy are very high, especially the damage to the environment is very high, it is almost impossible to get rid of the wastes. You have to think ten times when installing the power plant.

Therefore, for now, the solution seems to be fossil fuels in order to meet the increasing energy demand. Unfortunately, our country is a fossil fuel-poor country. The quality of the coal coming out of the coal mines is low, the oil does not come from anywhere except Batman. From there, we only get 2-3% of the need. Natural gas resources are only found in the Black Sea for the time being and they are still trying to be extracted. Its full contribution to the economy will only be possible when the facilities start working at full capacity.

We are a country dependent on foreign energy. This has a negative impact on our economy. Maybe there will be some relief soon, but it seems that this will not change for many years to come.

For now, we are trying to meet our energy needs by being dependent on foreign sources, with coal-fired thermal power plants supplied from abroad and natural gas conversion power plants operating with gas purchased from abroad.

In energy production, we prefer thermal and natural gas cycle power plants. There is a reason for this. Although other energy sources have problems in producing the needed energy in a controlled manner, controlled energy production is possible in these power plants. When the energy need increases during the day, the power plants are operated with higher capacity, and when the energy need decreases during the day, the capacity is reduced. Therefore, investments in thermal and natural gas cycle power plants have increased in recent years.

Let's put a comma here for now and continue our article tomorrow.

In our article on the control of this energy, which extends from fire to electricity tomorrow, let's first try to understand what electrical energy is. Then let's take a look at what we can do to control it.

Love and regards from Moscow

(To be continued)