Efficiency is Crucial to a Green Future
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 01.29.07
When we say that efficiency is crucial for a green future, we mean it. Look at these graphs from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (they are similar to those used by Amory Lovins in his book Natural Capitalism and in his Winning the Oil Endgame video presentation). They show that out of the ~97 quads (1 quad = 10^15 British thermal units) or ~103 exajoules (1 exajoule = 10^18 joules) generated from various sources in the US in 2002 (nuclear, hydro, biomass, natural gas, coal, petroleum), 56.2 quads or 59.3 exajoules were wasted, lost, unused for any valuable work. That's more than half. We all need to take a moment and seriously think about that.
The ratios for U.S. Energy Trends were pretty similar in 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, etc. It's not a recent trend.
For those who think that radically increasing efficiency (in energy and materials) is a pipe dream and that we're already doing what we can do, we suggest having a look at the aforementioned Natural Capitalism, the Rocky Mountain Institute's publications on energy, the Factor 4 - Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use book (a bit older, but still relevant) and the Factor 10 Institute.
There is also a very recent study titled [R]evolution (pdf) by the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and Greenpeace International which concludes that "half of the world's energy needs in 2050 could be met by renewables and improved efficiency". It highlights different scenarios for different parts of the world, with a different mix of renewable energy sources depending on what would work best (more wind in Northern Europe and North-America, more solar in the Middle-East, etc), but a past of cheap energy, bad design (or at least not energy-efficient design) and inertia mean that big efficiency gains can be made everywhere.
Political will is another big element. Unlike what some people seem to believe, political will doesn't just come out of nowhere. The public needs to demand these changes (that's already observable: in countries where the population has a higher level of eco-awareness, the politicians don't have a choice but to propose green measure, but where the level of eco-awareness is low, the politicians can more easily ignore pressing environmental issues without paying a political price).
So educate yourself, spread the word and demand change.
::[R]evolution Study (pdf), ::Energy roadmap backs renewables, ::The energy [r]evolution starts here, ::U.S. Energy Flow — 2002
Thank you for informing me of this study and providing a link. It provides for very interesting, informative and hopeful reading. I completely agree that efficiency is a critical aspect of a renewable energy future. Greatly increased efficiency and conservation can have a huge impact on our total energy consumption, as is shown in the graph above. This includes a whole host of things at every level, from the level of energy production, to energy delivery and consumption. On a personal level, it involves numerous small details, such as switching to CFLs and LEDs, A+ fridges, washers, dishwashers, etc., energy-efficient laptops and TVs, elimination of vampire loads, better transformer 'cubes', use of motion-sensors to switch lights and thermal sensors to control heating systems, use of small fuel-efficient cars and hybrids, more use of bikes, public transport, walking and telecommuting, smaller better insulated and designed homes, passive solar and passive cooling design, and so on and on. None of these things individually is anything impossible or impractical to do. We simply have to make people aware of all of these host of things that need to be done to improve efficiency and conservation and thereby reduce energy consumption and its consequent GHG emissions.
I just want to emphasize that the role of efficiency is more of an issue for "upstream processes" and of course increasing efficiency there(ie: the power plant) would make the world much better in terms of environmental degradation due to use of fossil fuels. However, this is not relevant to the average individual when accessing his or her actions-- instead the average person should be concerned with their consumption. Do you really need everything that you think you need? Lowering consumption and getting rid of unnecessary processes has a larger impact than simply increasing efficiency of the appliances in your home (it does nothing to replace an incandescent with a CFL if you are still using lights that you don't need). Unfortunately, the average individual needs a lot more than political will and cool gadgets to really make the difference.
Look at the two biggest waste flows in that chart: electric power generation and tranportation. Guess what, both of those run primarily on heat engines with a theoretical maximum thermal efficiency of 50% and an effective actual thermal efficiency between 15 and 45%. You can't change the laws of physics, and you can't turn fuel into work at anything close to 100%.
From your waste ratio I surmise systemic inefficienies are included? A coal powerplant of older technology, for example, is about 35% efficient, and new iGCC plant will push that to 45%.
If so, then it will be a long struggle to put a dent into that. Without a doubt efficiency is a critical component to energy growth and co2 reduction. Recent cost analysis by McKinsey suggests that 30% of required CO2 reductions can be achieved just with better CAFE standards, house insulation, etc. But your argument suggests that efficiency is all we have to do, which is incorrect.
using both the heat and the electricity can increase the overall efficiency of many plants quite a bit, but the choices we have are not just coal plants that are more or less efficient and gasoline cars that are more or less efficient: We need to develop an infrastructure that has clean energy sources and clean transportation. It's not even a choice, we can't keep going in the direction we are going now...
It truly is amazing to see the amount of waste that takes place on the consumption end. From electronic products that consume energy even when they are off to consuming energy unintentionally (leaving things on), conservation needs to be emphasized more than it has been.
Part of the answer is combined heat and power, CHP. Stop worrying about whether the efficiency of the plant is 35% or 45%, by reclaiming most of that waste heat to boost the overall efficiency to 80% or 90%.
The plants must be smaller and located closer to where the heat is needed (so they will probablly not be coal-fired).
Efficiency and CHP are two big steps in a better direction. Let's go now.
@Devin Ben-Hur
You are right that you can't fight physics. If we look at the electrical system, though, most of the inefficiency comes from the way we choose to design the electrical grid. We MOVE electricity long distances because we have centralized the power system that favors large power companies consolidation of resources and control.
When you redesign for distributed power generation, one that favors local thermal, small scale hydro, solar and wind energy sources, you can gain the use of most of those distribution losses with the added benefit of reducing the use of fossil fuels and lowering the chance of state wide black outs like NY and CA have been experiencing these last few years.
You can't fight physics, but you can fight bad design.