In my post “Living, Driving and Flying the Talk?”, I mentioned that “It’s important to note that much of India and China’s industrial CO2e/y is emitted due to their manufacture of products for Americans and Europeans.”
To shed more light on this problem, I will direct you to Annie Leonard’s wonderful “The Story of Stuff” which will increase your awareness of the implications of stuff and likely change the way you live and work.
The chart below from Dr. MacKay’s book shows regional greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (tCO2e/y) per person in 2000. In easy to remember approximate terms, Americans emit 24 tCO2e/y per person. Europeans emit half that or 12 tons. The Chinese emit half that or six tons which matches the global average. The Indians emit half that or three tCO2e/y per Indian.
In order to give you some sense of the magnitude of our problem, let’s examine freezing our global GHG emissions today. We currently have 420 parts per million (PPM) CO2e in the atmosphere which would still increase due to the compounding effect year over year as about 1/3 of the CO2 released into the atmosphere remains there for 50 to 100 years. Americans would have to reduce GHG emissions by 75% to reach the six tCO2e/y per person global average.
I calculated my household’s CO2 emissions and I encourage you to calculate yours at the Empowerment Institute’s Low Carbon Diet webpage by selecting “Household CO2 Calculator”, third link from the top in the leftmost column. To what extent can I reduce my household’s emissions by employing awareness, thoughtful behavior and energy efficiency while simultaneously improving the quality of our lives?
Our house is a large, from my perspective, Cape built in 1966. The basement, first floor, and attic have comparable square footage. I resisted the temptation to buildout our attic (a mini CO2 emissions miracle) so the living area in the house is the first floor totaling 2600 square feet. There are three of us here and we have a daughter in college on the west coast. She lives here four months of the year so I have included her as 1/3 of a person in our per person calculation, but I have not included her west coast emissions.
Our 2009 CO2 annual emissions in pounds:
– 3,224 trash (one garbage can or 32 gallons of dry trash per week … all food scraps go to the compost, goats or chickens … I didn’t count their incoming or outgoing emissions)
– 7,560 electricity (5400 kWh … no ac … attic fan … clothesline … high setting on dehumidifer in the basement was a big item for us over the summer … have lowered the setting for 2010 … no tv in 2010)
– 23,400 natural gas (2000 Therms … forced hot water heating (bedrooms or about 1/3 the house at 50 degrees in winter) … heated often with wood-burning stove … primarily ash trees that are dying all around us … don’t know the CO2 emissions for the wood portion … will heat with wood most of the year in 2010 … considering vertical geothermal/well … house faces east unfortunately)
– 14,700 2001 bmw 530i (15,000 miles 20 mpg … considering old original Honda Insight … took one out on highway/backroads 50/50 for 1/2 hour and averaged 75 mpg!)
– 11,600 2008 honda civic hybrid (22,500 miles 38 mpg)
– 30,200 one of three roundtrip flights by our daughter and four others by our other family members all to the west coast (roundtrip 5,400 miles). Also, two roundtrips to SC to visit our parents (roundtrip 1,600 miles)
This totals 90,684 pounds. This equals 13.6 tons of CO2/y per family member (3 1/3 people) or 17.7 tCO2e/y using a crude 1.3 ratio of 34 gigatons (Gt) of CO2e/y over 26 GtCO2/y emitted worldwide into the atmosphere from human activity. My goal for 2010 is a 20% reduction to 14.2 tCO2e/y per family member in pursuit of the global average of six tCO2e/y per person. We will also have to address our GHG emissions increase per person caused by our gradual transition to a two person household.
Unfortunately this CO2e emissions total does not include the emissions from our food and product purchases as well as other public infrastructure, transportation and buildings. It’s important to note that much of India and China’s industrial CO2e/y is emitted due to their manufacture of products for Americans and Europeans.
I first learned of Dr. MacKay, a physics professor at Cambridge University, when a friend and colleague in my town pointed out an Economist magazine article about his book. He has written and published a book online called “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air”. This is my Christmas present to each of you reading Cleantech Compass weekly posts.
Dr. MacKay focuses on answering the question “can we conceivably live sustainably?” Part I is primarily about energy consumption and renewable energy production per capita in the United Kingdom. Part II is called “Making a Difference” and there is a Part III of “Technical Chapters” for those of you who would like to delve deeper.
Above is one of the book’s illustrations which points out CO2 emissions per capita for numerous countries. Dr. MacKay’s reference point is the U.K., but his work translates well outside of the U.K. He addresses the energy and environment challenge before us using a wonderful blend of laymen’s language and math. I appreciate his simple rounding technique that enables calculations to be performed in one’s head, understood and remembered.
“A tour de force . . . As a work of popular science it is exemplary . . . For anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the real problems involved [it] is the place to start.” —Economist.com
I hope you all have the good fortune today to pause and be thankful.
“The first path … is essentially an extrapolation of the recent past. It relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity.”
“The second path combines a prompt and serious commitment to efficient use of energy, rapid development of renewable energy sources matched in scale and in energy quality to end use needs, and special transitional fossil fuel technologies. This path, a whole greater than the sum of its parts, diverges radically from incremental past practices to pursue long-term goals. It does not try to wipe the slate clean, but rather to redirect our future efforts, taking advantage of the big energy systems we already have without multiplying them further.”
I am grateful that we have a second path and pray that we take it this time.
Amory Lovin’s book “Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace” was published in 1977. The two excerpts above were taken from it.
Pre-industrial revolution CO2 levels were at 280 parts per million (PPM). Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, pegged us at 380 PPM CO2 during his Compton Lecture at MIT in May 2009. At the current emissions trajectory, we will hit 560 PPM CO2 around 2050. This doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels is generally accepted as the level at which the most damaging climate disasters occur.
Socolow and Pacala, co-directors of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) at Princeton University, studied stabilizing CO2 emissions at current levels rather than allowing CO2 emissions to continue to increase at historical rates.
They propose 15 “Stabilization Wedges” each having the attributes that the “technology MUST exist today”, the “technology MUST be capable of large-scale deployment” and the “emissions reductions it offers MUST be measurable”. Each wedge would reduce CO2 emissions by one gigaton (one billion tons) per year. In order to stabilize emissions at current levels 7 of these 15 wedges (or sufficient amounts of all 15) would have to be implemented.
Read the original August 2004 article from Science magazine to better understand Socolow and Pacala’s proposal to stabilize our CO2 problem.
As I cycled up my road on this Indian summer day, I looked up toward our house to see my son’s pastel-coloured laundry on the clothesline silhouetted in the foreground of an amazing fall foliage scene. The overlaid cacophony of bird cries as they amassed in trees and flight during their fall dance ritual was in stark contrast to my thoughts about the future of COAL in our world.
If you are serious about a global sustainable energy and environment balance you absolutely must understand the use of coal for electricity generation. Globally, it is responsible for 37% of our electricity and has a 5.4% annual growth rate. Coal is the largest and fastest growing energy source for electricity generation.
Energy Source ( % of Global Electricity / Annual Growth Rate % )
– Nuclear ( 1% / 0.2% )
– Oil ( 9 / 1.4 )
– Natural Gas ( 19 / 3.0 )
– Hydro ( 20 / 3.1 )
– Coal (37 / 5.4 )
At the HBS Energy Symposium two weekends ago, Fredrick Palmer, SVP at Peabody Energy provided us with some of these facts on coal. He supports an 80% reduction in green house gases (GHG) by 2050 in the U.S., but emphasized that this goal is only achievable through the use of carbon capture and storage technology.
In the U.S. after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, coal became the U.S. energy source of choice to ensure economic and reliable electricity supply. Our total U.S. energy usage includes an approximately 50% dependence on coal for electricity.
From 2010 to 2030, the global population is expected to grow from 6.8 billion people to 8.2 billion people. There is a very strong correlation between electricity availability and use AND people living longer and better lives. At the same time, the use of coal to produce electricity is a health problem and environmental problem from mountain top mining to air pollution to GHG emissions.
Wednesday I visited GreatPoint Energy’s Mayflower Clean Energy Center in Somerset, Massachusetts with Cleantech colleagues and the MIT Energy Club for a tour and presentation. GreatPoint Energy has built a pilot plant to demonstrate the commercialization of hydromethanation technology to manufacture pipeline quality natural gas from low cost coal, petroleum coke and biomass. A few technical challenges remain, but this concept promises a 50% reduction in emissions versus coal-fired power plants and is funded by major energy players including Dow Chemical, the largest natural gas user, AES, the largest energy producer, Peabody Energy, the largest private coal producer, and Suncor, the largest petroleum coke producer.
Unlike oil that at higher prices will bring about economic advantages to switch to alternative fuels, coal will continue to be the most economic choice for electricity generation in India, China and the U.S. where it is found in abundance. Coal was the energy source for 65% of the increase in energy production in China between 1990 and 2005.
Currently, an additional 700 Million Tons Per Annum (MTPA) of coal, 70% of the total supply of coal for U.S. electricity generation, is required to keep up with the coal-fired power plants being built around the world annually. We MUST make coal “cleaner” to use for electricity generation for the foreseeable future.
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