Yesterday, the International Energy Agency, at its "World Energy Outlook" conference in London, announced that the world would need at least $37 trillion in investments between now and 2030 to stabilize greenhouse-gas emissions below sustainable levels. (By "sustainable," they mean keeping carbon concentrations in the atmosphere below 450 ppm—note that some climatologists, notably NASA's Jim Hansen, worry we need to dial back to 350 ppm to avoid the worst effects of climate change.)
Now, $37 trillion is the sort of heart-stopping figure that makes this all seem undoable. But things start to look different when you bore down into the numbers. The world will already need $26 trillion in energy investments, no matter what, between now and 2030—that's just to keep up with expected growth in demand, and it would be necessary even if we kept burning fossil fuels willy-nilly. So then we'll need another $10.4 trillion if we want to shift to cleaner sources of energy. (Bear in mind these are investments, not deadweight costs.) But then those investments—which will include a lot of efficiency improvements—will bring at least $8.6 trillion in benefits from lower energy bills alone. And that's not including the benefits from better health and, of course, reducing our risks for drastic global warming.
In any case, Greenwire's write-up of the IEA conference has some useful tidbits. Becoming more energy-efficient—which includes everything from wringing out the waste in our power sector to smarter appliances to CFLs to fuel-economy standards—would likely account for more than half of the cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030. Nuclear and renewable power supply the next biggest chunk. The shift to electric vehicles will play a mid-sized role. And meanwhile, capturing carbon emissions from coal plants will likely get just a bit part—accounting for just 10 percent of the emissions savings by 2030. (And, judging by recent reports, even that target might be too ambitious for CCS.)
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COMMENTS (1)
Bradford, you need to learn about something engineers always do when trying to do something new. First, you look to see what the current "record" is for achieving something. And then you push perhaps 10 or 20% beyond that. Maybe it's building height. Maybe it's well depth. Maybe it's airplane speed. And you do that year after year after year. If you are lucky, you can sustain perhaps 10% year over year.
But this stuff where journalists are throwing around numbers with encouraging words is just, I'm sorry, but horseshit. When you are talking about energy, you are already talking about trillions of dollars in the US alone. If someone could find a way to reduce that cost by even a few percent it ... view full comment
Bradford, you need to learn about something engineers always do when trying to do something new. First, you look to see what the current "record" is for achieving something. And then you push perhaps 10 or 20% beyond that. Maybe it's building height. Maybe it's well depth. Maybe it's airplane speed. And you do that year after year after year. If you are lucky, you can sustain perhaps 10% year over year.
But this stuff where journalists are throwing around numbers with encouraging words is just, I'm sorry, but horseshit. When you are talking about energy, you are already talking about trillions of dollars in the US alone. If someone could find a way to reduce that cost by even a few percent it would means 10's of billions of dollars IN THEIR POCKET. And if it was easy to do one year, they'd do it again the next year. And the next year. Why do you think they arent' doing it already? Because they hate money? Or because it's hard? Or because it doesn't pay for itself?
Japan has tried the conservation thing. They did OK the first few years. Then they stalled. And then they started goign the wrong way again just liek the rest of the world.
Find an existence proof, and build on that.
It's this "pie in the sky" dreaming that causes the status quo to remain the status quo. The dreamers like to think a big break through is around the corner and that ugly things like nuclear can be ignored. Do the math. If you want to get rid of CO2, then build nuclear plants like crazy for the next 10 years, and then you have 20 years to figure out how to get alternate energy numbers to look a bit better.
If we would have followed France's path on Nuclear penetration, we would have belched out 53 billion fewer tons of CO2 up until today.
Yes, the anti-nuke crowd of the 1970's is responsible for nearly all of that. And they will be responsible for the next 50B tons emitted in the next 20 years.
If everyone in the world gets to produce CO2 equally, then the western world has to reduce its CO2 ouput by 90-95%. You don't get there with CFLs, a few windmills and a prius.