Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

How to save energy through both societal and individual actions.

Re: IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

Unread postby ralfy » Sun 30 Nov 2014, 22:56:41

In capitalist systems, trillions saved are used elsewhere, usually requiring more use of energy and material resources in return for profits and returns on investment.
User avatar
ralfy
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 5569
Joined: Sat 28 Mar 2009, 11:36:38
Location: The Wasteland

Re: IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 09 Dec 2014, 18:09:36

Counting On Energy Savings Is the Right Way To Go

California is in the midst of reinventing its energy infrastructure for a number of reasons: massive amounts of clean renewable energy (like solar and wind) are coming online; the state’s second largest nuclear power plant recently retired; and a whole slew of clunky old gas plants are in the process of closing. But that leaves the important question of: How will California replace the energy that was generated by the retired power plants?

First, the state needs to figure out how much energy we are going to need over the next decade. This is called the “energy forecast” and the Energy Commission helped answer that question yesterday when it updated its energy forecast with actual data for 2013. (Which it now updates every year to better coordinate with other state planning processes.) And the good news is: counting on energy savings is the smartest way to plan for our energy future.

When the Energy Commission accounted for planned energy savings — and 2013 was the first year ever to have such a forecast — the forecast that included future energy savings was the best predictor of actual energy consumption. It was much better than the forecast that omitted those planned energy savings — and incomparably better than the historically implausible “high” forecast. Take a look for yourself, here are the official forecasts for 2013 compared to actual consumption in 2013, which was presented at yesterday’s meeting:


Image

Lesson learned: Counting the full amount of energy savings is a critical to getting the forecast right.
By including expected energy savings (from new utility efficiency programs, future building efficiency standards, and expected appliance efficiency standards), the commission came pretty close to getting it right.


Now, the people making these arguments are the same people who make money on new fossil-fueled power plants, so their argument is not surprising. But it is critical for Californian’s pocketbooks and for their health (which suffers due to the dirty pollution coming out of fossil-fueled power plants) that the Commission does not decide to build more pollution-emitting power plants than it actually needs. And that means getting the forecast right.


nrdc

If the world is going to have any hope of keeping average rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees, then energy savings or energy efficiency is critically important. This is how the Climate Institute sees our future (I've posted this figure before in the "Geoengineering" and "Renewable Energy and Economic Growth" threads):

Image

climateinstitute
Last edited by Graeme on Tue 09 Dec 2014, 19:26:17, edited 1 time in total.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
User avatar
Graeme
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 13258
Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
Location: New Zealand

Re: IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 09 Dec 2014, 18:35:54

That's not what they said. It was this:

the forecast that included future energy savings was the best predictor
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
User avatar
Graeme
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 13258
Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
Location: New Zealand

Re: IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 06 Jan 2015, 16:30:10

2015: The Year of Energy Efficiency

As we reflect on 2014 and start to think about what we’re going to do differently in 2015, it’s worth taking a look at how much energy we use, and how we can find simple ways to cut some of the energy waste out of our lives.

The United States consumes more energy per capita than almost every other country in the world, but only about 14% of our energy comes from renewable sources. That means our carbon dioxide emissions per capita surpassalmost every other country too.

Even while renewables constitute a growing portion of our energy mix, we’re sorely lagging behind other countries on the path toward secure, sustainable, domestically produced energy. But the good news is, we’ve got a lot of easy opportunities to do better. The US wastes about 61% of the energy we produce — much of it due to how we generate, transmit, and distribute it.

But there also are plenty of ways to reduce waste where we’re actually using energy, all without sacrificing function or comfort. Energy efficiency, simply put, is using less energy to get the same output or value. Ways of being more energy efficient include using appliances that use less energy or reducing air leakage from our homes and buildings. Programs to increase energy efficiency date back to the energy crises of the 1970s, and continue to be hugely successful today.

Take Michigan for example, where recent data from the Public Service Commission show that the $253 million Michigan utilities spent on energy efficiency programs in 2013 will yield a $948 million return in savings in the coming years. That’s an excellent investment, no matter who you talk to. And Michigan is by no means an anomaly.

We’ve seen states throughout the country see the same kinds of positive returns for their investments in energy efficiency, which continues to prove itself the cheapest “fuel” — investments in energy efficiency per unit of energy output are less costly than both traditional fossil fuels and clean renewable fuels.


theenergycollective
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
User avatar
Graeme
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 13258
Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
Location: New Zealand

Re: IEA: Treat energy efficiency as ‘world’s first fuel’

Unread postby Graeme » Fri 23 Jan 2015, 16:39:10

The next energy revolution won't be in wind or solar but in human behavior

In the arid lands of the Mojave Desert, Marine regimental commander Jim Caley traveled alongside a 24-mile stretch of road and saw trucks, tanks and armored tracked vehicles all idling in the heat — and wasting enormous amounts of expensive fuel.

Caley had already led forces in Iraq, and at the time was charged with seven battalions comprising 7,000 Marines. But this was a new and different challenge. Overseeing a major spring 2013 training exercise at the Marine Corps' Twentynine Palms base in southern California, he was struck by how little he knew about how America's war-fighting machine used energy.

"No targets prosecuted, no miles to the gallon, no combat benefit being delivered," Caley, a Marine colonel, says of the scene. "At the time, I had no system to understand what was going on, and what was occurring, and how much further I could go on the same fuel."

The Department of Defense is the single biggest user of energy in the U.S. — its energy bill in 2013 was $18.9 billion — and Caley now plays a central role in trying to ensure that just one of its branches, the Marine Corps, uses that power in the optimal way. The implications for the military are vast. For instance, the Marines alone have estimated that they could save $26 million per year through a 10 percent energy reduction at their installations and bases, to say nothing of Marine field operations, which used an estimated 1.5 million barrels of fuel in 2014.

But most striking is how these changes are coming about. As head of the Marines Corps' five-year-old Expeditionary Energy Office, Caley is tapping into one of the hottest trends in academic energy research: looking to use psychology and the behavioral sciences to find ways of saving energy by changing people — their habits, routines, practices and preconceptions.

"The opportunities that we see on the behavioral side of the house are phenomenal," Caley explained during a recent interview in his Pentagon office. "And they're frankly less expensive than us trying to buy new equipment."

Through behavioral changes alone — tweaking the ways that Marines drive their vehicles, power their outposts, handle their equipment — Caley thinks he can increase their overall battlefield range by as much as five days, a change that would provide immense tactical benefit by cutting down on refueling requirements (and the logistical hurdles and vulnerabilities associated with them). If he succeeds, the Marines would stand at the forefront of an energy revolution that may someday rival wind or solar in importance: one focused not on changing our technologies or devices, but on changing us. And its applications would touch every corner of our society, from how we behave in our homes to how we drive our cars.

Any change to how the military uses energy has momentous implications simply because it uses so much of it — roughly the same amount of power annually as the state of West Virginia. But the behavioral revolution in energy is also highly significant in the civilian sector, where truly Pentagon-sized energy gains could be reaped just by tweaking little behaviors. For instance, here are some published estimates of possible energy savings from behavioral changes. These shouldn't be taken as exact, but rather as ballpark figures:

A roughly 1 percent overall U.S. household energy savings could be gained if people switched their washing machines from "hot wash, warm rinse" to "warm wash, cold rinse."

A 2.8 percent gain could come from setting the thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and 65 degrees overnight.

Another 2 percent could be gained by driving cars at 60 miles per hour, rather than 70, on the highway.

One 2009 study suggested that American households — which account for around 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions — could achieve a 20 percent emissions reduction by changing which household appliances and objects they use, and how they use them. That's greater than the total emissions of the country of France.


stripes
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
User avatar
Graeme
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 13258
Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
Location: New Zealand

Previous

Return to Conservation & Efficiency

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests