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Answer to Energy Crisis? Waste Not, Want Not |
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By Stephen Leahy*
To
fight climate change, it is not enough to produce alternative sources
-- we must promote the idea of consuming less, warn experts.
TORONTO, Oct 23 (IPS/IFEJ) - Soaring worldwide
demands for energy are driving climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions
dangerously higher, increasing investments in new "clean" energy
sources but neglecting existing technologies to reduce energy consumption.
Energy remains crucial to economic development in a world where
more than 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity
While the media and government focus has been on "greener" and cleaner
ways to generate energy -- like biofuels, wind, solar and hydrogen
--, major improvements in energy efficiency could dramatically reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases, save money and provide the breathing
space needed to improve and develop new energy sources.
Scientists estimate that to avoid dangerous climate change (a more
than two-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures) world
greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by about 60 percent
from today's levels by 2050.
World energy demand is projected to increase more than 50 percent
between now and 2030, and that will raise energy-related carbon
dioxide emissions 52 percent above today's levels, reported the
International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 2005 World Energy Outlook,
considered to be the definitive report on global energy. Carbon
dioxide, CO2, is considered the main greenhouse gas.
That energy path is unsustainable, warns the IEA, which is calling
for major changes.
"The need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions means
a drastic overhaul of how we produce energy," Christopher Flavin,
president of the Worldwatch Institute, a U.S.-based environmental
group.
"We are facing the biggest economic transformation since the Industrial
Revolution," Flavin said in an interview.
Few people have been able to get their heads around the scope and
breadth of the changes, he said.
Alternative ways of generating energy with little or no carbon emissions,
improvements in energy efficiency and using less energy overall
will all be needed on a massive scale. That is beginning to happen
in terms of wind, solar and biofuel energy, which are growing at
double-digit rates and now generate close to 10 percent of the world's
energy, said Flavin.
However, energy efficiency in North America and elsewhere has been
on the back burner since the oil crisis of the 1970s.
The European Union is an exception, where even centuries-old apartment
buildings are lit by low-energy compact fluorescents equipped with
motion detectors or timers so they only turn on when needed. By
contrast, lights are on 24 hours in hallways and stairways as well
as offices and stores across North America.
This fall, EU countries, already twice as energy efficient as the
United States or Canada, announced an action plan to reduce their
energy needs by another 20 percent by 2020.
"It is easier and cheaper to improve energy efficiency than produce
more energy," said Nathan Glasgow, a senior consultant at the Rocky
Mountain Institute, in the based in the U.S. state of Colorado.
The opportunities to improve energy efficiency are nearly endless,
Glasgow said in an interview.
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), headed by energy efficiency
guru Amory Lovins, has designed programs for large and small companies
that have dramatically reduced energy use and saved billions of
dollars.
Converting coal at a U.S. power plant into energy that lights an
incandescent light bulb is only three percent efficient, RMI research
shows. Coal plants waste 70 percent of the energy they generate
as heat, transmission lines lose another 10 percent, and so on.
Wasted heat from U.S. coal-fired power plants amounts to 20 percent
more energy than Japan uses for everything, Lovins has written.
Such inefficiencies add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in
the U.S. and more than one trillion dollars a year globally.
But governments prefer to focus on building new power plants or
investing in new energy technologies like hydrogen fuel cells despite
the fact that the tools to make dramatic efficiency improvements
already exist, says Glasgow.
The compact fluorescent lamp is one such tool. It uses 70 to 80
percent less electricity and lasts 10 to 13 times longer than an
incandescent bulb, and costs between two and five dollars.
"You'll find more compact fluorescent lamps being used in China
than the U.S.," Flavin said.
India, China and other countries are facing a very different world
as they develop, one with less oil and a need to reduce pollution
and greenhouse gas emissions.
"They know their development path will be different and could leapfrog
ahead into adopting and creating new technologies," he said.
That path means using less energy while continuing to grow economically,
agreed Stephan Barg, senior corporate adviser at the International
Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). The IISD is a policy
research think-tank based in Winnipeg, Canada.
"Efficiency is not about doing with less but getting the services
(economic development) we want with less energy," Barg said.
Ironically, the United States and Canada may have more trouble making
this adjustment than developing countries will.
"The way we've organized our cities in North America, with extensive
unsustainable urban sprawl, makes improvements in energy efficiency
difficult," Barg said.
During the energy crisis of the 1970s, the United States and Canada
developed strong energy efficiency programs, but most of them have
fallen into disuse, he said.
The Canadian government funded the development of a super energy-efficient
home design in the 1970s called R-2000. But only a few thousand
have ever been built because they cost about five percent more.
"If Canada had adopted R-2000 as the building standard for homes,
we would be a much more energy efficient country," Barg told IPS.
The current U.S. and Canadian governments have so far refused to
mandate higher efficiency standards or establish national energy
efficiency policies, as European countries have done.
Humanity responds to short-term, urgent crises but often ignores
long-term ones, Barg said.
"Politicians and the public don't understand the urgency of the
climate change problem," he noted. "We are reaching a crisis globally
with climate change. The key question is whether we will be able
to respond in time."
* This story is part of a series of features
on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation
of Environmental Journalists. |
