Notes from talk at Alternative Energy Association 26/8/2010
Phil Alford – Energy Efficiency – the low-hanging fruit
Insulation 50%+ saving
Super-efficient fridge 80%+ saving
Compact fluorescent 80% saving
60L Green buildings 70%+ savings
The problem: CO2 concentrations over 389 ppm by volume rising fast
Taking into account NO2 and CH4 we’re at about 462 CO2 equivalent.
Methane is 20x CO2
CFCs are 10000x CO2
In the last 5 years solar irradiance has been lowest in 30 years. Sunspots are just starting to appear again and they will add to warming.
[url=www.science.org.au/reports/climatechange2010.pdg ]The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers[/url]
Hot off the press August 2010 from the Australian Academy of Science
Energy efficiency: saving 1kWh of electricity means that up to 2kWh doesn’t need to be generated (taking into account transmission losses).
People want the services that energy provides to live comfortably.
Energy efficiency isn’t just low-hanging fruit. It is the fruit lying on the ground. Steven Chu US Energy Secretary 2009.
Energy efficiency is underfunded and underappreciated.
Global subsidies $200 billion for fossil fuel use.
Investment in renewable energy $117 billion
Investment in energy efficiency $1.8 billion
Energy efficiency confronts deeply entrenched mindsets about energy use and is harder to ‘see’.
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions for stationary energy now 52% and growing steadily. It is the electricity for buildings factories houses.
Australia needs to go from about 26 CO2 equivalent tonnes per capita (highest in the world) down to about 2 CO2 equivalent tonnes per capita.
This includes industry and all the CO2 embedded in goods and services.
30% is food alone in Australia.
Commercial retrofits HVAC (heating ventilating air-conditioning) have huge potential savings. Efficiencies offer big paybacks particularly for commercial.
Best LCD LED TV screens now only consume 76W (LED backlight)
www.cabot-corp.com/nanogel silica aerogel – a glass with bubbles in. R1.5. (The best double glazing is R0.5. ) It lets light in but not heat in or out.
Appliances air-conditioning lighting and room heating are our big power users.
Halogen lights are very energy-consuming.
A lot of the energy use in the commercial sector is just moving air around.
Refrigerators are getting very efficient BUT much bigger.
From January this year TVs have started having energy-efficiency ratings.
Any fridge older than 1990 is best to replace.
Best European fridge (a Turkish one) is twice as efficient as our best fridges (Blomberg make in Turkey 200kWh/year)
Duct air away from fridge.
40 house fires/yr because of halogen lights before Labor’s insulation debacle. Halogens are a disaster. Halogens run 200-300 degrees C. Insulation is now on the nose as a fire hazard.
Also electrical practices of how wire is laid out in ceilings are slack. Even the gaps between the joists are very variable so insulation bats don’t fit.
Painting roof light colour would keep the roof space cooler. California has a white roofs program. Cream colourbond is good. Shiny metals not good – the metals don’t emit well. Some paints are meant to be high emittance. White paint is about the same.
Policies to drive abatement:
· Put a price on carbon
· Motivate individuals and businesses to do more that they’re required to do. Promote and recognise voluntary action.
· Drive innovation and its adoption
· Tackle complex social financial and technical systems that block action
· Ensure accountability – monitoring reporting verification enforcement
· Reform energy markets to reward abatement
· Use mix of policy tools
o Information training education
o Demonstration
o Templates for procurement leases …
Leading psychologist recommendation on the best way to reduce home-generated greenhouse gases:
o Tell people that their consumption is above (or below) average for their community (peer pressure)
Jennifer Cluse (jencluse@optusnet.com.au) speaking from her technical training which was very thorough in teaching about positive feedback reactions:
The 200 year CO2 graph is a graph of a runaway positive feedback reaction. That point is 2016-17. Ideally you cut everything off but at least eliminate the feedback. Reduce CO2 to what the world can absorb but it’s got to be done by 2017.
There are no technical solutions we can affect. It is only politics we can affect now.
2 possible solutions:
o benign facism
o technocracy
Something’s got to happen and it’s got to happen fast.
Get governments to agree to a wartime government footing. Combine the best skills of the best people.
Need a core overgroup of people who know what needs doing.
Starting to get very scared.