New AC technologies to cut power use

The U.S. expends roughly 185 billion kilowatt-hours of energy each year on home cooling, the most by any nation in the world. Air conditioner sales are growing globally by roughly 20 percent per year, with the newly affluent in China and India leading the way. How do we beat the heat without increasing that heat through global warming caused by burning fossil fuels to power the air-conditioner? The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, ARPA–E, hopes to cut this hot forecast by reducing the energy required for air-conditioning.

Conventional air-conditioners employ refrigerants such as chlorofluorocarbons to absorb heat from the room to be cooled. That heat is then expelled outside, requiring electrically powered pumps and compressors. One idea to conserve energy is to replace coolant fluids and gases—which are often super-powered greenhouse gases capable of trapping more than 1,000 times more heat than CO2—with solid materials, such as bismuth telluride. 

A new device uses electricity to change a thermoelectric solid to absorb heat, and could lead to cheaper air-conditioners or refrigerators. Such refrigerators, which lack moving parts and are therefore less likely to break down, can be lifesavers in remote, rural areas for keeping medicines cool or food fresh.

Another approach is to employ specialty membranes to cool air by condensing water. These technologies are being developed by companies and now have acquired backing from the U.S. Navy, which requires efficient air-conditioners and dehumidifiers for both troops and equipment in hotspots such as Iraq and Afghanistan. "A 30 percent improvement in efficiency means 30 percent less fuel to drag to the front," Martin notes, adding that the Navy program aims for units that use 20 to 50 percent less fuel.

More efficient air-conditioners can provide cooling that could prove vital for people trying to adapt to more extreme heat waves in the future, whether in the U.S. or India. Meanwhile, a simple approach to cut down the HVAC bills would be to keep the knob a level higher than freezing temperatures - a practice in many places!

Efficiency standards for US computers

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that it wants to establish minimum energy efficiency standards for all computers and servers sold in the United States. A new study shows that large server farms can, in fact, cut electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions sharply with off-the-shelf equipment and proven energy management practices.

Most big data centers could slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 88 percent by switching to efficient, off-the-shelf equipment and improving energy management, according to new research.

The carbon emissions generated by a search on Google or a post on Facebook are related mostly to three things: the computing efficiency of IT (information technology) data center equipment, like servers, storage and network switches; the amount of electricity a data center's building uses for things other than computing, primarily cooling; and how much of the center's electricity comes from renewable or low-carbon sources

"Of these three, improving the efficiency of the IT devices is overwhelmingly the most important," said Jonathan Koomey, a co-author of the study, "Characteristics of Low-Carbon Data Centers," published online June 25 in Nature Climate Change.

The processors in most server farms perform computations at just 3 percent to 5 percent of their maximum capacity. Server virtualization, consolidation and better software can increase utilization to greater than 30 percent, and in some cases to be as high as 80 percent.

Big, outward-facing companies whose business primarily is cloud computing have solved the sustainability problem for data centers. eBay even discloses its data center efficiency publicly at dse.ebay.com.

After IT equipment, the second major way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with data centers is to improve the efficiency of the buildings that support them. A key measurement of efficiency is the ratio of electricity used to perform computations to the amount of power consumed for secondary support, like cooling and monitoring systems. Typically that ratio is about 1 kilowatt-hour for computing to 0.8 kWh for the facility. State-of-the-art data centers have reduced the ratio to about 1 to 0.1 kWh, said study co-author Arman Shehabi of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division. "They locate server farms in cool climates like the U.S. Northwest, Sweden and Iceland. They purchase processors that are less sensitive to heat. And they use efficient cooling equipment and air-flow management."

Of the potential 88 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, though, IT device efficiency accounts for about 80 percent and facility energy management for only about 8 percent. Once those two areas are maximized, sourcing electricity from renewables like wind and solar power, plus green handling of retired equipment, can get a typical data center's emissions down 98 percent.

US lags in efficiency??!

The fact that the U.S. is the least energy efficient country in the world may be unbelievable, but it is a fact.  Every industry (manufacturing, transportation, residential, commercial, etc.) has aided in the wastefulness of this country, some more than others.  According to the U.S. Energy Administration, estimates show that the industrial sector consumes more energy every year than any other U.S. entity.  It has also established that energy use by the residential, transportation, and commercial sectors has drastically increased each year for the past 60 years, and it continues to rise.

Despite the growth of renewable energy sources, the bulk of power in the US is still produced using coal, petroleum, and natural gas, which tend to lead to inefficiency.  The New York Times published a study in 2008 that calculated the main causes of energy waste.  It estimated that 71 percent of energy generated for transportation is wasted, 66 percent is wasted in electricity, 20 percent is wasted in commercial and residential buildings, and 20 percent is wasted in industry or manufacturing.

A major culprit across all industries is heat waste, the byproduct of inefficient technology.

SE4All could be the answer

The UN's Sustainable Energy for All initiative, if successful, could make a significant contribution to the efforts to limit climate change to target levels, according to a new analysis. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, showed that reaching the 3 energy-related objectives proposed by the United Nations in their Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative, launched in 2011, would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change and, in combination with other measures, could help keep global temperature rise from exceeding the internationally agreed target level of 2°C.

The SE4All objectives include providing universal access to modern energy, doubling the share of renewable energy globally, and doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency -- all by 2030. While the SE4All objectives do not explicitly address climate change, it is clear that sustainable energy is a prerequisite for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: 80% of human carbon dioxide emissions come from the global energy system, including transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity, heat, and fuel production.

But as the team observed, the UN's objectives must be complemented by a global agreement on controlling greenhouse gas emissions. While the UN energy objectives are formulated as global goals, the researchers also note that regional and national actions will be vital to achieving them.

Using a broad range of scenarios, the researchers found that if all the SE4All objectives were met, the likelihood of keeping temperature rise below 2°C would be more than 66%.­ If only the renewable energy goal is met, chances of keeping temperatures below 2°C would range from 40 to 90%, while achieving just the energy efficiency goal would improve the chances to between 60 and 90%. But the researchers warn that the latter result depends strongly on what economic growth is assumed in the future. The researchers note that the likelihood of reaching climate targets within the scenarios depended on a variety of other factors, including future energy demand growth, economic growth, and technological innovation.

The study also found that providing universal energy access by 2030 will not hinder long-term climate goals, thanks to the marked gains in energy efficiency that will result.

Doubling US energy productivity

The area of building efficiency affords tremendous opportunities for both economic growth and reduced environmental impacts. Buildings are the single largest emitters of greenhouse gases. According to a UNEP study titled “Towards a Green Economy,” homes and businesses are responsible for 40 percent of the climate change causing carbon pollution. The potential savings from efficiency are huge, particularly when partnered with increased energy productivity. The Alliance Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy released a report that suggested a strategy to double U.S. energy productivity by 2030. The commission is comprised of a diverse coalition of energy leaders including representatives from energy utilities, academia, industry and environmental groups.

The commission found that getting twice as much output could reduce U.S. carbon dioxide pollution by one-third below 2005 levels. Achieving the commission’s goal of doubling energy productivity by 2030 would also:

• Add 1.3 million jobs
• Cut average household energy costs by more than $1,000 a year
• Save American businesses $169 billion a year
• Increase gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 2 percent
• Decrease energy imports by more than $100 billion a year
• Reduce CO2 emissions by one-third

The Commission report suggests that there are more than $1 trillion in energy-saving opportunities with the right private sector, federal, state and local support. The ambitious yet attainable solutions proposed by the commission will drive innovation and technological advancements, which will modernize manufacturing and make the U.S. economy more globally competitive.

REFIT proving good

The energy efficiency programme announced in UK last year has already started showing results. The RE:FIT scheme works by helping public organisations retrofit their buildings with energy-saving technology that did not exist when they were first built such as combined heat and power, photovoltaic solar panels, low-energy lighting and more efficient boilers.

Already 63 public sector organisations across London have signed up to participate and a number have already seen real benefits, says a Guardian report. Ealing council's £1.1m scheme took 10 months to complete, has found a 29% per annum saving on the local authority's energy bills. It has also cut the council's CO2 emissions by 1,000 tonnes a year. With a five year payback, transferring the risk from the public purse to the private provider of the work, it has made both environmental and financial sense.

By 2015 when complete, the projects will have created more than 1,000 jobs and CO2 emissions will have been reduced by nearly 47,000 tonnes a year – the equivalent to 5,402 flights from London to Paris. Nearly 1.7m sq metres of public property will have been retrofitted, space which could be stretched across 250 football pitches, finding energy cost savings of nearly £9.7m. That is something. From a 'mere' retrofit?

Popularising energy efficiency

In the US where Smart Grid initiatives are fast being deployed, more than half of the consumers surveyed (54%) by Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) had never heard the term ‘smart grid!’ But many firms are looking at ways to make energy efficiency as popular as the Facebook!

According to SGCC’s 2013 “State of the Consumer Report” “Billions of dollars are being invested in new technologies that are little understood by the people who are supposed to benefit and who are paying the bills.” The good news is that people like the concept once they learn about it. Among those familiar with the term, only 13 percent perceive it in negative way, according to the SGCC survey.

Meanwhile, another survey found that two-thirds (62 percent) of those it surveyed spend less than 10 minutes per month reviewing their energy usage or bill. To put this in perspective, the average American spends 100 times longer each day on Facebook than on checking out their energy bill! Can Smart power be made as popular as the FB? Some think so.

SGCC has been at work for some time defining who we are as energy consumers. The organization has segmented the American consumer based on our attitudes, values, behaviors, motivations, lifestyles, technology know-how and other characteristics. SGCC then helps utilities tailor their marketing to each segment. Some groups respond to messages about saving money and energy, others environmental concern and global warming.

For example, those who SGCC calls “Do-it-yourself and save” types are likely to show interest in programmable thermostats that require some planning on their part. And “Easy Streets,” wealthy individuals reluctant to change their behavior, might respond to marketing materials pitching automated thermostats of the “set and forget” variety.

A new one-stop ‘residential customer engagement solution’, which is a software and services product helps utilities reduce energy use by making householders more energy aware. Others, too, are pushing the idea of centralizing home energy management. Honeywell rolled out an energy management platform this week that combines Wi-Fi thermostats and a management software with interactive, cloud-based application. Homeowners are able to view and adjust energy use from anywhere using a smartphone or computer.

Utility spending on energy efficiency will double by 2025 to about $9.5 billion per year, according to a recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That means substantial energy savings – and a lot of new ideas and technology for the consumer to master.

UK serious about energy efficiency

UK government has launched a new strategy entitled the ‘Energy Efficiency Strategy’ that aims to save the equivalent of 22 power stations-worth of energy by 2020. Published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Strategy “is aimed at changing the way energy is used in sectors such as housing, transport and manufacturing over the coming decades.”

The Strategy also includes immediate actions that the government hopes will help “kick start a revolution in UK energy efficiency.” Some aspects of the strategy include: £39 million to fund five centres examining business and household energy demand. The five End Use Energy Demand Centres, funded by the Research Councils UK and project partners and led by leading universities, will look at what drives energy demand and how to change future behaviour. 

An energy efficiency labelling trial with John Lewis. DECC and John Lewis will introduce a product-labelling trial next year that shows the lifetime running costs of household appliances. A similar trial in Norway showed that this information led to consumers purchasing goods that are more energy efficient.

A drive on financing energy efficiency for business and the public sector. As well as a guide to help public sector organisations cut their energy use, the government will fund a nationwide rollout of RE:FIT, the Mayor of London’s award winning programme to improve public sector energy efficiency. The government is also working with ENWORKS in the North West to understand how best to finance and upgrade to more energy-efficient equipment in commercial and manufacturing businesses.

Efficiency shows US the way

Americans used less energy in 2011 than in the previous year, due mainly to a shift to higher-efficiency energy technologies in the transportation and residential sectors. Meanwhile, less coal was used but more natural gas was consumed according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Wind power saw the biggest jump from .92 quadrillion BTU, or quads, in 2010 up to 1.17 quads in 2011. Hydroelectricity also saw an increase going from 2.51 quads in 2010 up to 3.17 quads in 2011. Hydroelectricity jumped significantly in 2011 because 2011 saw large amounts of precipitation in the Western U.S.

The majority of energy use in 2011 was used for electricity generation (39.2 quads), followed by transportation, industrial, commercial and residential consumption. However, energy use in the residential, commercial and transportation sectors decreased while industrial energy use increased if only slightly.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the nation’s solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity now exceeds 3.5 GW. This figure is the result of a new system at the EIA for estimating the lower bound on total installed PV capacity. The figure includes both utility and customer-scale installations. The latter was not captured in previous estimates.

Of this 3.5 GW of installed solar PV, about 30% of it is considered utility-scale solar. The remaining 70% is found in consumer-sited installations, including commercial/industrial (42%) and residential (28%). These data will give researchers the ability to more accurately track small-scale solar grown in the United States. Though, these data will still not capture off-grid PV systems.

Prevention or extinction?

Energy efficiency can plug a lot of wastage and release as much as 40-50 percent of the demand. Of course, this is when done across the board, in every sector. But it is often worth the while to stop and think on human behavior before talking grandiose tech stuff. While simple tinkering is all is needed most times, what precedes is intention. Do we really think it worth the tinkering?

For instance, entrepreneurs have suggested simple innovations with water coolers at public places to save energy (and water!). Almost everyone uses chilled water for rinsing the glasses and most often water remaining in the glass is simply flushed! Isn’t energy wasted – in using cold water to rinse? What if the incoming water can be pre-cooled to reduce the load on the system? It was found that when water at 35 degrees is being cooled to 20 degrees, then simply reducing incoming water temperature by five degrees will reduce energy consumption by one third. Pilot projects with these provisions could register average recovery of 40%.

Now the big question – from pilot to commercial is the big leap. How many of us will think it necessary to install a simple evaporative cooling unit with coolers? Why invest the money for some energy saved? Especially, when energy is still so cheap, and ‘abundant’. Right?

How many of us take the trouble to drive at uniform speed to save fuel?? Will we learn to go slow on a commodity believed to be unlimited? Or scramble in panic when it is too late, to save the dregs?

Adding up in effect

An incremental approach to closing the gap between where emissions are and where they need to be may be easier and more successful. Without any change in greenhouse gas emissions, the world will be creating 12 more gigatons of carbon dioxide a year than we should be in order to prevent worst-case global warming. In order to close that gap, the research team sought to identify areas that share four characteristics: like existing traction, other benefits, leaders and that the action can achieve at least a reduction of one half billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2020.

The researchers from Germany and Netherlands identified 21 initiatives that meet the four above characteristics. The combined impact of bringing those initiatives to scale, as outlined in the graph, brings CO2 output to near the target range of 44 gigatons a year, reducing output almost the full 12 gigatons it would take to do so.

In essence, being part of a larger coalition that has the potential to completely bridge the entire emissions gap will make it much more attractive to participate in and take action than individual spurts. What is required is a coalition that together provides leadership in bridging the gap.

The team’s calculation shows that the initiatives have in sum substantial potential to bridge the emissions gap, going beyond what governments have pledged. The combined effect of the initiatives can be quite substantial: a reduction of roughly 10 Gt CO₂e below business as usual by 2020, plus the effect of enhanced reductions in air-pollutant emissions. This can be compared to the gap of around 12 Gt CO₂e between business as usual and what would be necessary for the 2 °C limit.

 A coalition of progressive governments and producers could remove barriers to solar PVs by introducing good grid access and net metering rules, paving the way to add another 1,600 GW by 2020 (growth consistent with recent years). Impact in 2020: up to 1.4 Gt CO₂e. The Global Wind Energy Council could foster the global introduction of arrangements that lead to risk reduction for investments in wind energy, with, for example, grid access and guarantees. This could lead to an installation of 1,070 GW by 2020, which is 650 GW over a reference scenario. Impact in 2020: up to 1.2 Gt CO₂e. The UN Secretary General's Sustainable Energy for All Initiative could ensure that all people without access to electricity (1.4 bn) get access through low-emission options. Impact in 2020: up to 0.4 Gt CO₂e. The International Energy Agency could work with countries to phase-out half of all fossil-fuel subsidies. Impact in 2020: up to 0.9 Gt CO₂e.  So on.

For more, read.

Simple steps, big gains

Simple low-or no-cost actions such as regular maintenance, leak prevention, reducing pressure and switching off an electrical gadget when not in use could save a typical business in the industrial sector £1500 a year. In fact, more efficient use of compressed air systems could save UK businesses £110 million a year, according to the UK government-backed Carbon Trust.

Compressed air is widely used in many industries from aircraft manufacturing to water treatment, as well as in electronics and engineering.

“There is a misconception that compressed air is a free or low cost resource, when – in fact – the opposite is true. Just a single 3 mm hole in a compressed air system creates a leak, which can cost a business an additional £1000 a year in electricity costs,” says Richard Rugg, director of Carbon Trust Programmes.

Meanwhile, according to another report from CNT Energy and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), energy efficiency upgrades to US apartment buildings could save owners and residents up to $3.4 billion!

Cost-effective upgrades to buildings with five or more apartment can save 15-30% on utility bills, according to the report Engaging as Partners in Energy Efficiency: Multifamily Housing and Utilities.

The report’s key finding is that utilities and building owners need to work together to identify potential savings and implement the necessary measures.

Energy efficiency is the low hanging fruit in the tree of energy security. But often the option that is ignored, due to the illusion of surplus that has been the bane of energy supply anywhere. While it may look like meagre efforts in scrimping and saving, when many hands put together, the savings can be enormous.

Efficient motors can rake in millions

As we have been saying, simple measures go a long way in tackling complex issues. Sometimes it can be so simple as to be tough to discern!

Electric motors and VSDs account for two-thirds of industrial electricity use in the UK and 40% of all electricity consumption globally and can cost ten times as much as they cost to run every year.

But two new guides from the Carbon Trust show businesses how to make reductions to their annual energy bills. A medium-sized business spending £50,000 a year on electricity could save 10% on its costs by installing VSDs and higher efficiency motors.

Motors often don’t need to be working at 100% capacity, so VSDs help save energy by slowing motors down by 20%, for example, which can cut energy use by half. Timers can also be used to switch off motor-powered equipment when not in use.

According to the Carbon Trust, the UK food and drink industry could save up to £70 million a year through such measures, while more energy intensive sectors like plastics, rubber and chemicals could save up to £270 million annually.

Gadgets in the times of scarcity

Go visiting a friend and chances are that the talk will veer around to some new acquisition, a gadget. Guest and host will discuss the new models, the tricks it has up its sleeve, the price, and so on. Very rarely will the discussion touch on the aspect of efficiency or power use!

In developed countries this is more so, but developing nations with fast rising aspirations are catching up on their electric toothbrushes, smartphones, big fridges, flatscreen TV, tablet PCs. In the UK, a report from the Energy Savings Trust has warned of the nation falling below meeting its target on reducing emissions if this gadget craze continues.

The number of domestic gadgets and appliances in the average UK household increased by three and a half times between 1990 and 2009, according to the report, and overall energy consumption from consumer electronic goods rose by more than 600% between 1970 and 2009.

The new report finds that despite householders' efforts to switch to energy-efficient products, we are actually consuming more energy than five years ago, with almost a third of all the UK's carbon emissions coming from the home.
The proliferation of new gadgets such as laptops, tablets and powerful desktops shows no sign of abating, however. Between 2000 and 2009 electricity use from home computing more than doubled, and the number of devices in Britain's homes rose from 30,000 to 65,000!

This could well be the truth for most cities across the globe. The cost of running gadgets is often forgotten given the cheap and subsidised rate of fossil backed power. This awareness must be strengthened if homes are to stop being energy guzzlers.

Tried and tested

A recent study in the US looked at a comparison of CFLs and LEDs. The claim has been that LEDs are more efficient than CFLs. LEDs also cost more than CFLs but they last longer, so you’ll make up the initial cost over the lifetime of the bulb. Are these facts really true?

What the survey found was that lab conditions differed from 'real world' conditions. In a lab, which can be controlled for the best possible conditions, light can be generated at optimal efficiency. Because manufacturers are able to utilize components that are made to work together, they can claim to produce results with greater efficiency.

For instance, a leading LED-chip manufacturer announced they had achieved an efficiency of 231 lumens per watt in an LED chip. However, this was conducted in a lab where technicians were able to use lighting fixtures capable of producing such high output. In the “real world,” this LED-chip manufacturer does not sell a LED lighting fixture with a claimed efficiency over 75 lumens per watt.

Therefore, among other factors, consumers would not be able to produce as high efficiency in their own homes.

For the study, they used two roughly equivalent CFL and LED lamps that would commonly be used in the home. When comparing the two on paper, the efficiency of the bulbs is nearly identical, within 0.5 lumens per watt. However, with the “real world” being taken into consideration, there are certain environmental and consumer factors that make a case for both.

One factor is cost. If your primary concern is price, the CFL would be a better choice. Although the CFL has a shorter lifespan, even if you replaced the CFL three times to achieve an equivalent lifespan to the LED, you’d still have spent lesser than on the LED.

The bottom line is that in a household setting, where optimal components and ideal conditions cannot be controlled, the LED and CFL light bulb are very close competitors. The decision for one over the other should be made based on the need.

But in terms of quality of lumens delivered, ask any electrical engineer and he will tell you that the good old T5 FTL (or tubelight) is the best! While a CFL gives 50-65lumen/watt, the T5 or T8 gives up to 95 lumen/watt. Lamp life too is lesser for CFLs.

Then why are organizations connected to energy efficiency promoting CFLs? Any idea?

Less leads to more

Is the Jevons Paradox true? Is energy efficiency really a dud?

Let's look at what the Paradox says. Jevons Paradox is named after William Jevons, who observed in the 19th century that an increase in the efficiency of using coal to produce energy tended to increase consumption, rather than reduce it. Why? Because, Jevons argued, the cheaper price of coal-produced energy encouraged people to find innovative new ways to consume energy.

Jevons paradox, is really an extreme statement about an effect economists commonly observe called "rebound": some of the gains from energy efficiency are lost because people's consumption rises in response to lower prices.

For instance, when government requires more fuel-efficient cars, aggregate demand by cars for gas is less. So prices tend to decline, and (to a limited effect) that lower price motivates a few people to drive a little more than they might have, perhaps taking advantage of the lower prices to take an extra weekend trip.

Thus the gains from efficiency is lost in increased consumption. A classic example is lighting, which has gotten vastly cheaper per unit as the world has moved from lamp oil to candles to incandescent bulbs to fluorescent bulbs. Yet people now use more resources for lighting than we ever have in the past, since we have chosen to put lights almost everywhere.

Some opponents of the paradox say this is just a convenient theory that allows governments not to do anyhting about efficiency. Perhaps. But surely there is a truth in the theory. Human tendency has been to consume more of what is saved. Once your spending budget is fixed, any amount released from one product inevitably ends up in another basket, right?

Write in your views, while we bring you another post on efficiency.

It's Code Green!

Here's how coders can join the save-energy campaign! If you can afford one error every 100,000 operations or so, you can already save a lot of energy. Up to even 90 percent!

A University of Washington project sees a role for programmers to reduce the energy appetite of the ones and zeroes in the code itself. Researchers have created a system, called EnerJ, that reduces energy consumption in simulations by up to 50 percent, and has the potential to cut energy by as much as 90 percent.

The basic idea is to take advantage of processes that can survive tiny errors that happen when, say, voltage is decreased or correctness checks are relaxed. Some examples of possible applications are streaming audio and video, games and real-time image recognition for augmented-reality applications on mobile devices.

Some experts believe we are approaching a limit on the number of transistors that can run on a single microchip. The so-called "dark silicon problem" says that as we boost computer speeds by cramming more transistors onto each chip, there may no longer be any way to supply enough power to the chip to run all the transistors.

The UW team's approach would work like a dimmer switch, letting some transistors run at a lower voltage. Approximate tasks could run on the dimmer regions of the chip. Today's computers could also use EnerJ with a purely software-based approach. For example, the computer could round off numbers or skip some extra accuracy checks on the approximate part of the code to save energy.

For sure, we need to cut the energy flab in every which way possible. In every walk of life, in every area.

Time to slow down

Fo regular readers of The Guardian, a recent long-drawn spar has been one taken up by columnist George Monbiot that began with being cautious about nuclear to openly batting for nuclear power. To his opponents, Monbiot has had many points to quote on why he considers nuclear to be a clean option, wastes and security issues notwithstanding.

But a much recent off-shoot of the discussion has been his rhetoric to environmentalists advocating renewables and how they expected to live with lesser energy which this would mean, at least initially. An interesting retort by a fellow columnist brings up a valid point - 'the most obvious way of cutting production is to make things to higher standards. If everything were made to last twice as long then we would only need to make half as much of it. This requires us to slow down the rate of technological progress so that goods (and humans) do not become functionally obsolescent so quickly'.

To Monbiot's query on how to find the energy required to make bricks, glass, metal tools and utensils, textiles … ceramics and soap, Simon replies: 'Take bricks: for several years I lived in a cob house – built in 1911 from rammed unbaked earth – which was warm and delightful. I have also made unfired bricks with a device called a block ram, and 30 years later they are weathering fine.'

He goes on to say very pertinently that reducing consumption of goods is not a recipe for abject poverty. Half the world still lives without superabundance, but where there is misery 'it is because of lack of food, water, simple medicines and adequate shelter – not because of a shortage of cheap T-shirts, factory-fired bricks, or 17 varieties of cleaning product.'!! How true.

A large populace the world over is led to believe taht techno-fixes that will allow us to go on extracting the world's resources at an ever accelerating rate. What a fallacy.

Product ratings on efficiency

The UK Coalition Government has just launched a campaign to persuade the country’s consumers to buy energy efficient appliances that will save them money and the environment.

This summer, new energy efficiency labels for appliances like TVs, washing machines, dishwashers and fridge-freezers will be introduced across Europe, but UK consumers are the less likely to buy energy efficient appliances than their European neighbours.

The new mandatory European Energy Label features rainbow-coloured bars indicating the energy rating of a product, but those ratings will now include A+ and A++ for appliances that have improved their efficiency over and above the highest A rating level.

As manufacturers further improve the performance of appliances, additional A+++ categories of energy efficiency may also be introduced.

“These new energy saving ratings will help people make the right choice when out shopping for TVs and white goods by choosing those which are rated the darkest green on the labels,” said Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, launching the campaign.

Energy labels started appearing on appliances in the mid-1990s and are now being applied to a wider number of products, including boilers and vacuum cleaners.
The European rules covering energy labelling now require that the actual amount of energy that a product uses are included in the information, with the energy performance rating shown in adverts as well as at the point of sale.

Of course, will it help unless the consumers are educated on the need to buy these appliances? What kind of incentives will attract a consumer to buy a certain product are many. Immediate savings play a bigger role often than long-term savings. At least that has been the case in India where most of these products fall in the upper cost bracket. Share your views. Would you buy an energy saving product?

Yes, we can, says WWF

We can have a world of vibrant economies and societies powered entirely by clean, cheap and renewable energy!

WWF’s just launched Energy Report confirms that all the world’s energy needs could be provided cleanly, sustainably and economically by the year 2050. Renewable energy is the way ahead. Fossil fuels like oil and coal could become relics of the past. And the sooner we start planning for that cleaner, greener world, the sooner it can be a reality.

The report makes it clear that by 2050 the world’s power, transport, industrial and domestic energy needs could potentially be met entirely from renewable sources.
And that won’t just be good for energy security, it will also cut environmental pollution and, crucially, reduce the catastrophic impacts of climate change. A 100% renewable energy future would mean carbon emissions from energy dropping by over 80% worldwide by 2050.

Energy Report also calls for a big global effort to seriously improve the energy efficiency of our economies. To achieve a 100% renewable energy future, we must do more with less energy – under the report’s scenario total global energy demand will actually be at least 15% lower in 2050 than in 2005, thanks to new technologies. And that’s despite the predicted increases in population, industrial output and travel, including electric vehicles.