Give up Gadgets and Big Screen TVs? Get Real.
According to the Guardian, a UK 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.
Hmm, where have I heard about this phenomena before?
As highlighted in the Guardian’s subhead, the UK organization that conducted the study seems to suggest this solution:
…consumers must be weaned off TVs, laptops, tablet PCs and fridges if emission targets are to be met.
Good luck with that.
I like gadgets as much as the next person but what pisses me off is the apparent built-in obselescence of many everyday appliances. It is cheaper to throw away a fridge than to fix it.
I guess the only things built to last that I can pass to my son are my guns and tools. Built to last 🙂
“”¦consumers must be weaned off TVs, laptops, tablet PCs and fridges if emission targets are to be met.”
Good luck with that? But I thought all we lacked was political will. Marlow says we’re in “tinfoil hat territory” if we don’t believe the emissions cuts are necessary and, well, this is what’s necessary, right? Are you denying it’s necessary, denying that this can be done, or claiming that the failure to ban refrigerators, televisions and laptops is the result of oil funded denial machines?
Now that we know this, at the very least we can insist that colleges and universities (the places least likely to be captives of the Tea Party) will ban laptops immediately. Of course, to do that, they’ll first have to stop requiring them. This isn’t too much to ask, right- we can take notes in order to save Earth from imminent destruction. Right? Has the University of East Anglia banned laptops, tablets, refrigerators and televisions? How about Pennsylvania State, where Michael Mann works? Surely they’ve implemented the ban. They care about the Earth, right?
“the UK organization that conducted the study seems to suggest this solution”
Er where do they suggest that? I see it as a subheader in the article and I see indignant comments in about the evil greenies come to knock down their door and steal their precious wealth but the report itself says
“Industry, both manufacturers and retailers, can help consumers to make more energy-efficient choices. Simply making and stocking more efficient appliances ““ choiceediting ““ means that it becomes no longer possible for consumers to buy energy-inefficient electrical products. “
[…]
“But choice editing is unlikely to affect how many electrical products people buy, unless retailers choose to stop stocking items like digital picture frames, fibre-optic Christmas trees and other novelty ornamental items. On this basis, while choice-editing is an important element in changing consumer behaviour, there is a need to encourage people to stop and think about whether they really need to buy another item that plugs in.”
[…]
“Even aside from the bewildering choices we are often faced with, the idea that “˜bigger is better’ has grown in popularity in recent years: TVs, fridge-freezers, and even washing machines are all increasing in size. But bigger is not always the most appropriate choice, and a more efficient machine that’s bigger than the old one it is replacing may not use any less energy at all, if it isn’t used effectively.”
So: Buy energy efficient devices, don’t buy stuff that uses energy you don’t really need and don’t buy bigger stuff unless you really want/need a bigger one.
Curious, isn’t it, that “the solution” always entails restricted freedoms. The restriction being imposed by really smart people who know what’s best for everybody, of course – including how big your washing macine should be.
Does anybody really take this stuff seriously?
Take the amount of electricity the average American uses (which is trending up).
Then project that all other people will trend towards using that same amount of electricity.
That is the reality of what is happening worldwide.
As we lift people out of poverty, they buy stuff which plugs in (whether it is electric cars or TV’s).
Soon, 9 billion people will use as much electricity, on average, as the average American.
We need more power!
We should get busy building nuclear power plants.
Jarmo Says:
October 5th, 2011 at 11:05 am
It is cheaper to throw away a fridge than to fix it.
Depending on the year it was made and what you are paying for electricity it may be cheaper to throw away your fridge and replace it even though it still works.
You can find a ‘retirement calculator here’
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calculator
The same is true for air conditioners. The typical 1990’s central air conditioning unit had a SEER(Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) rating of 6. Today the minimum is a SEER rating of 13 with the top of the units having a SEER rating of 24.
I will agree that electronic photo frames are bollocks. But tablet computing to me seems like the future of media storage. Only a few days ago a rather massive bookshelf arrived at home, and as beautiful as it is, I can’t help but feeling that this object is really just an anachronism. It’s big, it’s bulky, it takes up half of the room- it might make us look smart with our tons of books, but it’s making me feel dumb. The tablet is really a miracle device, capable of storing probably every book you’ve ever read, and it takes up no room at all. If the tech industries could improve on worker conditions instead of masterbating over military grade helicopter glass that breaks when you drop your $1000 phone, I’d have gotten one of those iPad thingies yesterday.
Lights, go LED. Same with TV’s I guess… OLED devices are improving efficiencies again. Fridges are getting more efficient all the time.
Kill your toaster.
Etc.
RickA @ 5 Says:
October 5th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
“Take the amount of electricity the average American uses (which is trending up)… Then project that all other people will trend towards using that same amount of electricity… Soon, 9 billion people will use as much electricity, on average, as the average American… We need more power!… We should get busy building nuclear power plants.”
Something that frustrates me about the “just let us build nuclear!” enthusiasts is how blissfully energy-illiterate they seem to be.
Current power consumption of Americans is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12,000 watts. 24/7.
If 9 billion consumed at that rate, the globe would be consuming at the rate of about 108 trillion watts (terawatts).
Current global power generation/consumption is about 16 TW, of which a whopping 0.4 TW are nuclear. Even to get nuclear to a meaningful fraction of just the existing power demand would require a buildout that stretches what is credible for nuclear – in terms of materials, finance, expertise, fuel, etc.
If you are serious about delivering that much power consumption, ~ 108TW, you don’t end your argument with a hand-wave by suggesting something that can’t plausibly deliver even a tenth of it.
One of the reasons that Hansen and Brand and Monbiot and Lynas and countless other climate-change-concerned folk are pro-nuclear is that they realize that we are going to have to have contributions from all sources, and pre-emptively excluding nuclear makes the challenge that much more prohibitive. But they aren’t waving nuclear as an argument-winning, magic panacea.
RickA Says:
October 5th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
<i>Take the amount of electricity the average American uses (which is trending up).</i>
Would you care to specifcy a source?
I can’t get to you conclusion using EIA data and US Census data.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec1_5.pdf
If 1970 we consumed a total of 67,855 Quadrillion BTU’s and had a population of 203 million for an ‘average’ consumption of 334 Quadrillion BTU’s/million popluation.
By my math in 2009 we consumed a total of 95,578 Quadrillion BTU’s and had a population of 305 million for an ‘average’ consumption of 313 Quadrillion BTU’s/million. The averages for 1980 = 345, 1990 = 341, 2000 = 351.
As far as i can see there hasn’t been a discernible trend in US per capita total energy consumption since 1970.
The only clear trend is the portion provided by nuclear and renewables since 1970.
RickA, rustneversleeps is broadly correct. I would like to point out that per capita energy consumption in the U.S. is trending down, not up.
harrywr2,
You’re working too hard. The Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy has per capita energy consumption by year for not just the U.S. but almost all countries. Very interesting stuff.
#6
I am talking about fridges made in the past 5-10 years, with the best energy use ratings. And microwaves, freezers, tv’s, washing machines etc.
@8
Well we sure don’t want to provide all the extra power with coal – right?
If we want to be green and provide a lot more baseload power, it seems to me that nuclear is really the only way to go.
I do agree it will be expensive to build all the nuclear power plants that will be required – but hey, it will be expensive to build the power plants no matter what technology you choose.
@9 and #10:
I should have said “I thought”, because I was not basing my statement on a source, but a belief.
Ok – per capita use is trending down – I concede.
Still – the other 8.7 billion people will use more power as their standard of living rises to match ours – and we will need to generate a lot more power than we are now.
I think that point is not in dispute.
The only question is how to best generate that extra power.
Now solar and wind are nice – but I have read that the utilities need to have enough capacity on tap so if it is night and not windy, they can provide all of the power the wind and solar would have, but cannot.
So we are still building all the capacity so cover if there were no solar or wind – and also using a lot of coal to provide power when there is no solar and/or wind.
So I would think we should go nuclear.
Just one persons opinion.
Hi RickA,
So do I. But nuclear won’t be enough, in the sense that we cannot build it quickly enough to solve all our problems. We need a portfolio solution that includes a smart grid, all the renewable we can lay our grubby hands on (especially including hydro, which nobody seems to want to talk about) and we’ll still end up using more fossil fuels than purists want to accept.
@Tom,
The Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy has per capita energy consumption by year for not just the U.S
I can’t find it since they revamped their website. A good chunk of my favorite bookmarks are broken. Overall the new website is better…aging of coal fired plants and other interesting factoids are right up front. Other stuff has become buried. Generating statistics now break out renewables into sub categories. The annual reports now focus on ‘delivered price’ of coal rather then minemouth etc etc etc. Good stuff one needs to have an intelligent discussion about energy.
But from this page –
http://www.eia.gov/emeu/international/energyconsumption.html
The link for US per capita energy consumption
http://www.eia.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0105.html
Ends up here –
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/index.cfm
In any case…IMHO it’s not the ‘gadgets’ and ‘big screen TV’s’ that are driving electricity consumption in the US. It’s the Southward Migration which shifts ‘heating'(fossil fuels) to ‘air conditioning’ (electricity).
Hear is an actual report done by the government –
http://epb.lbl.gov/homepages/rick_diamond/LBNL55011-trends.pdf
While the residential total per capita energy use shows the same leveling off as the US total energy use, residential gas use has declined since 1970 and electricity use has continued to increase. The decrease in gas use reflects the drop in energy for space heating and the shift to electricity (Battles 1995). The increase in electricity is due in part to greater air conditioning use (both in volume of space conditioned as well as hours of usage) as well as other appliance usage,switching from gas to electric (heat pumps, water heaters), and other factors, such as demographic shifts to the South (Schipper 1989).
Then we have this elephant in the room –
As household size has decreased, the floor area per capita has increased by more than a factor of 3, from 286 ft2 per capita in 1950 to 847 ft2 per capita in 2000.
I downloaded a lot of their data a few months back for a paper I’m writing. If you want, I can email you the old style spreadsheets.
But nuclear won’t be enough, in the sense that we cannot build it quickly enough
Beauracratic hurdles aside I don’t know why building nuclear would be much slower than building fossil fuel power. Renewable would take even longer ISTM – extensive grid for wind and standby power for wind and solar. I don’t get your reasoning Tom.
Tom Fuller: “So do I. But nuclear won’t be enough, in the sense that we cannot build it quickly enough to solve all our problems. We need a portfolio solution that includes a smart grid, all the renewable we can lay our grubby hands on”
The way I read this is – if you believe that we must reduce GHGs in a massive hurry, then we have to do windmills/solar panels and nukes. If you don’t believe this must be done very quickly, we don’t need to mess with windmills. The problem with this is that if we’d take the “too slow” approach of building nukes in the early 1990s, they’d be online now and we’d be reducing GHGs. And industry would have a better handle on future power costs.
The reality is that we’ve been told for 22 years that wind/solar/bio are the “fast” ways to reduce GHGs and we are learning that isn’t true. So… what’s plan B?
Hi JeffN and kdk33, I think Roger Pielke has stats that show we need to put a nuke plant online every 15 seconds or so for the next bazillion years to meet our energy needs. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.
But what I think the real roadblock is is training the engineers to build them and operate them. Permitting may speed up in other countries, but maybe not here.
Anyhow, I’m a big fan of solar because it can be consumer driven. I’m not a big fan of wind, for a lotta reasons. But again, nobody talks about hydro. Hydro should be huge. How come everybody just ignores it?
Hi Tom. I think they ignore hydro because the environmentalists will make your life miserable if you try to build it. They do the same thing for nuclear. Remember, global warming is important, but not more important than their other advocacy. Only conservatives are required to shed their principles to appease the climate gods.
But again, you make excellent points if there is acceptance that GHG emissions must be reduced very, very fast. I’m saying there isn’t any acceptance of that- there has been little construction of wind or solar (compared to the energy need), there’s no support for cutting off the electricity (even the greens get mad if you suggest they want this) and there is no real acceptance of nuclear.
This is important, I think. If this were a crucial issue, this would be the topic of debate- what we’ve learned about the technology and path forward. That ain’t happening. For my part, if the greens won’t let a single nuke plant through in 22 years then they aren’t serious about reductions at any speed and if they aren’t interested why should I be?
And solar? In the US and Europe? If you were made Ceasar, what percent of electricity used in the US do you think you could transition to solar in the next 10 years?
I think that before 2021 solar energy will supply 10% of the electricity in the U.S. I’d bet on it, but I already have a big bet going on with Joe Romm about temperatures…
I’ve got to agree with jeffn @21 from a political standpoint. Until the greens give up their sacred cow of no-nukes, then getting serious on a trans-formative energy change is never going to happen. It’s never even going to start.
They just have zero credibility here. There are too many greens who are co-opting AGW as a transparent means to an end for their pet projects. Wealth redistribution, ant-capitalism, class warfare, social justice, socialism to name a few. They are appeased by the true believers, but they are also dragging down the boat with them when it comes to viable solutions.
Walter Russel Meade routinely pummels the greens not for their detection of a possible problem, but for their ridiculously unrealistic (and jaw droppingly naive) proposed policy solutions. If the phrase “they are their own worst enemy” was ever more appropriate then here, I don’t know where it would be.
For me, I find it a compelling insight how revolting an ultra-cheap clean energy solution is to many (most?) of the greens. They simply do not find this appealing, which unfortunately exposes their alternate agendas. Hey, if you want to live off the earth at your local organic commune, feel free. You don’t have to feel the need to drag us all there with you because of your inner belief it is the “right” way to live. I like my 63″ state of the art TV with college football gameday, thank you.
@22 Tom Fuller
Given the current pricing trends for solar and coal over the last decade, how long will it take for silicon panels to be at price parity (unsubsidized) with coal?
This is a serious question. It seems to me the argument is mute once this happens, although solar has some pretty nasty emissions issues during production. We’ve been told solar polar is a decade away for decades, just curious what the most recent data show us?
Tom Fuller Says:
October 5th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
But what I think the real roadblock is is training the engineers to build them and operate them
In the developing world that is certainly true. SMR’s ‘should’ address the building problem.
I think that before 2021 solar energy will supply 10% of the electricity in the U.S
Take a look at the seasonal swings for solar.
http://205.254.135.24/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf
I would bet that by 2021 SEER 24 air conditioning systems will be ‘standard’ . Summer peak is currently about 15% higher then ‘winter peak’.
I would WAG that the average SEER rating for already installed air conditioners is in the neighborhood of 8.(The average in 1992 was below 6). If the installed SEER rating doubles in the next 10 years thru normal replacement then that 15% summer peak is going to shrink quite a bit.
Solar doesn’t help with ‘winter load’. The January generation numbers are just pathetic. One might expect 1/2 based on hours of sunlight but the statistics show 1/6 of the June generating capacity.
Solar’s attractiveness is correlation with load…if the correlation goes away so does it’s attractiveness. We will have some, maybe even 10% in ‘nameplate’ capacity.
Hiya
Tom Scharf, I wrote in an industry report last year that it would happen in 2015, which really pissed off a bunch of analysts that had been saying 2020 for a while. So I would guess that’s the range–2015 to 2020. I still like my pick.
Oh, shoot. Tom Scharf, our definitions of parity are not the same. Mine is unsubsidized but refers to grid parity with local utility rates, and I say that by 2015 solar is at grid parity in locations serving more than half the population. Kinda weaselly, but that’s the way the numbers came out for me.
I think anytime within ten years in the grand scheme is noise, but I am skeptical as just around the corner has been the mantra for too long. However the recent sharp decline in panel costs (bye bye Solyndra) shows some real evidence that progress is being made.
Solar has its own set of warts, mostly the sun doesn’t shine 12 hours a day. When it does hit parity, it won’t need activists, industry will do it by themselves. I support nuclear more because of 24/7 operation and smaller footprint and established track record. But there is no reason there should not be a mix of technologies if it makes sense.
Economic viability is everything. You won’t get many votes from WV (where I’m from originally) and other coal states, but they can be appeased if you put solar farms in their areas.
Now if only you can get the environmentalists to stop worrying about those turtle habitats you are encroaching on out there in the desert, ha ha.
#27 Tom,
Is you definition of ‘grid parity’ residential utlility rates(37% of consumption) or commercial/industrial rates(63% of comsumption)?
That’s just because they’re all wearing turtlenecks. I suspect that the turtles killed for their activewear decisions are an act of ecocide. But I’ll defer to our host on that issue.
Hi Harry
Residential.
Two pieces of news about energy and emissions:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/06/carbon-capture-project-longannet-collapse?intcmp=122
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/06/china-carbon-emission-forecasts-economy
This whole thing seems to be quite bogus.
The quotes don’t come from the report. So it is not off to a good start perhaps no one bothered to read it, perhaps that would cramp their style, inhibit the freedom of the press.
The carbon budget for 2020 is around 500Mt CO2e so their inflated headline figure for the overshoot would be a little over 1% of this.
The 7Mt CO2e by which they suggest the target will be missed assumes that the rest of the plan, e.g. decarbonisation of the electricity supply doesn’t happen, at all.
Their other figure (with an allowance for decarbonisation) is a miss by 0.7mt implying a reduction of 33% as opposed to 34%.
The only governemnt target I can find is for total household consumption which requires a reduction of 29%. The 34% figure they have chosen to use is for the total nationwide power usage which is a different issue all together. Electricity usage is planned to go up not down,
Regarding fridge/freezers, surprise surpirse they get a thumbs up in the report with large reductions in power consumption.
All in all it is a “so far so good” report, well done but please try harder, if you read the figures not the waffle.
Alex