Big Challenge: World Energy Outlook 2011
Andrew Henry| Posted inEnergy Efficiency and Durabilityon
This year’s World Energy Outlook is now out.
From thepress release…
“The world is locking itself into an unsustainable energy future which would have far-reaching consequences, IEA warns in its latest World Energy Outlook”
Or as the the Guardian newspaper put it…
“World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns.” (link)
Building to anything less than Passive House, or some similarly ambitious building energy efficiency standard, is a lost opportunity when one honestly considers how immense an effort meeting the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions to zero by 2050 will be.
Andrew
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Replies
Andrew,
Thanks for posting.
The links you provided appear to be broken.
Here are some links related to your post:
World Energy Outlook 2011 main site
Dr. Fatih Birol summarizes what's in the WEO 2011
The Guardian story
WEO 2011 Executive Summary
WEO 2011 "Key Graphs"
I have fixed the broken links in Andrew's post.
Thanks Lucas and Martin.
Let's all remember that prior to c.1850, absolutely everyone was carbon neutral, yet there were no superinsulated or super-airsealed houses. What's greener: a passive house or a yurt? Can you really correlate ACH50 vs. kBTUs of heating energy? In reality, there are more variables involved with energy consumption than just insulation. Teepees, once a standard dwelling here in North America, were far, far "greener" than a PH. They were constructed with near zero impact to the environment and operated with net zero carbon output. What really has to change is not ever thicker walls and roofs to meet efficiency benchmarks, but rather the expectations people have about what luxuries the world owes them.
Prior to 1850, 6 billion less of us that needed a smart phone, 50" TV, and Starbucks latte.
Innovators thankfully are solving all this.
TJ - There were a lot fewer people in 1850, and a lot more available firewood. People don't want to live in a Yurt. People want to live in a house (or apartment). There is quite a great distance on the spectrum from yurt to McMansion. The buildings (that people will want to live in) that we build will need to use very little energy. And the same goes for the legacy of existing building stock. There is going to have to be a huge effort put to a "deep energy retrofit" of what has already been built.
That said I get your point. Nate Hagen, the former editor of The Oil Drum put it this way in a recentinterview.
"We’re not really facing a shortage of energy; we’re facing a longage of expectations."
I think you're right about this...
Most existing housing stock (as I'm sure we're all aware) is nowhere near relevant to future sheltering needs.
Yet that same existing housing stock represents far too large an investment in terms of materials, infrastructure, financial capital and energy (embodied) to just let go...
What people "want" may not be relevant for too much longer either...
In a future of previously unknown constraints, deep-energy retrofits may be the only way to go.
Or, if we can't collectively get our act together, possibly yurts, teepees and igloos...
Lucas,
To be clear, I would never suggest that people should tear down a 1980's house and replace it with a teepee, on the grounds that native Americans managed to live in teepees without consuming thousands of gallons of heating oil, unlike many present day Americans. Instead, the correction has to do with how people live in whatever dwellings are available. I understand we get about 8% of present energy supply from renewable sources. That means all we have to do is cut demand by 92% and the problem is solved.
One way for an average US household to get there might be a deep energy retrofit to PH level efficiency, but this is obviously quite expensive and also resource intensive in the near term. If hypothetically our sources of energy imports decided to start selling "our" oil to China instead (due to their superior credit), then we would learn to live with 1/3 as much oil, with or without any major investment in new efficiency technology. For example, put on a sweater and a hat, and set the thermostat to "off". Just like that, a solution that doesn't require any investment, just different expectations. Maybe that sounds too extreme to be meaningful, but that's how I feel when people suggest there's a fixed relationship between R-value and energy demand. It's obviously not true for most of the world's people, who don't have access to the American Way of Life.
TJ,
I understand. I did not mean to imply criticism of you point of view - in fact I feel the same way.
However, I've come to realize that a vast majority of people seem to be unwilling (or possibly unable) to rationalize the types of lifestyle changes you describe...
Not to mention just setting the thermostat to "off" during winter in my climate would probably lead to the slow destruction of many of the residential foundations in the area.
Moving into a future of resource scarcity while trying to maintain some semblance of our present way of life, deep-energy retrofits of existing stock may be the only practical way to spend available resources. As expensive as a deep-energy retrofit may be, ultimately I think it represents a more efficient use of resources than building a new stock of efficient homes.
Another path (more likely I'm sure) is to be passive, let "market forces" or other such articles of faith determine our destiny...
Following this path will probably just leave us rudderless in an increasingly stormy sea, putting us at the mercy of forces beyond human control and eventually forcing us back into living in yurts.
Not that there's anything wrong with living in a yurt of course.