Widespread adoption of electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Some are worried that the electric grid will be stressed leading to a decrease in its reliability. In related news today, Battelle and AeroVironment have a technology that will address this concern, and help EV’s charge when the grid is most able to support charging.
According to a brand new study carried out by consultancy Ecofys and commissioned by the WWF, the European Union can halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
We have seen time and again that the European Union has been a leader in the fight against climate change when it unveiled its now famous 20-20-20 by 20 strategy. We also have seen that the EU could go further and that 30 percent cuts are achievable by 2020 as its Emissions keep decreasing.
What the EU currently lacks is a vision for 2020 and a plan for further cuts afterwards. There is indeed nothing official on the much needed energy transition to be done at a European level.
Now the WWF and Ecofys demonstrates that – with the right incentives and policies – by 2030 the 27 members of the EU could get 40 percent of its energy from renewables and cut their energy use by 38 percent (compared to a business as usual projection).
The report is a reminder that achieving 100 percent renewables across the economy by 2050 is absolutely feasible.
By 2030, Ecofys projects that 65 percent of the Union’s electricity, 35 percent of its heat and 29 percent of its fuels could be powered by renewables.
Energy efficiency, as you can imagine, would play an important role in this endeavor. Here is an overview of what could be done.
Ecofys breaks European energy savings by economic sector, with industry consuming 31% less energy, buildings making a 26% saving, and transport energy consumption falling by 11%, all by 2030.
The methods involved in the reductions would change from sector to sector. Transport emissions would be cut by fuel economy measures, improved air traffic management, and greater vehicle electrification and use of hybrids.
In industry, a 60 to 70 percent reduction in the intensity levels on 2000 levels would be achieved through increased recycling, stringent and ongoing ‘best available technology’ guidelines and ambitious plant refurbishments.
By contrast, with buildings, a 2.5 percent annual retrofit is proposed, along with increased heat recovery, insulation and ventilation systems, heat pumps, solar thermal systems and local renewable solutions where possible.
Let’s hope the European Union will take advantage of this report and many others to provide an ambitious energy and climate project for 2030 and beyond.
Two office buildings in Norway are being retrofitted so they will generate more power than they use when the project is completed next year.
The three- and four-story buildings, in the town of Sandvika, near Oslo, will generate geothermal and solar energy on site, making the buildings “energy
A quick survey of cleantech advances in Europe shows that it’s easier than ever for individuals and private households to live the cleantech lifestyle without sacrificing comfort or convenience. And while we may not think our individual decisions matter, we all know that when it comes to resources, we’re factoring these choices by 7 billion these days. Even your choice to read this post online has an impact – an in-depth look at the impact of our use of digital information in recent New York Times article states that a single data center can take more power than a medium-size town.
Stay with me; I’m not faulting you for that but instead hope to encourage you to keep an eye out for the latest cleantech innovations that you might find easy, comfortable and cost-saving enough to warrant bringing them into your life.
For example, we all like to take a shower with plenty of hot water rather than tepid, lukewarm water, right? UK-based Viridian Solar would agree, which is why they’ve developed a water heating system powered by rooftop solar panels and made it available to the general public.
This solar water heating can provide 50-70 percent of the annual energy required to heat domestic hot water, reducing the overall energy consumption of a well-insulated house by around 10-12 percent. To date, more than 300 dwellings across the UK have been fitted with Viridian’s panels.
How about laundry – what’s next there? Xeros Ltd—another UK based company—is focused on the development of a “virtually waterless” laundry cleaning system that uses 90 percent less water than conventional laundry systems. To take entire U.S. water use in home laundry as an example, that translates into 1.2 billion tons of water saved per year—the equivalent of 17 million swimming pools.
Xeros debuted its revolutionary, environmentally friendly cleaning process earlier this year on the British TV series Home of the Future, which shows how an ordinary family can use cutting edge technologies and gadgets to tackle challenges such as energy and water use.
It’s getting even easier to power our homes with more sustainable sources of energy too.
For example, in the UK, government subsidy led to a swift rise in requests by householders for solar power. UK company Cleaner Air Solutions stepped in to make photovoltaic systems widely available and easily deployed for private residences. If the customer testimonials on their web site are to be believed, the process really is quite simple and straightforward: “hassle-free from start to finish” in the words of one customer.
Similarly, German company enbreeze designed a small-scale wind turbine that is even viable on low-wind sites, thus expanding the number of potential residences that can tap into this clean energy source.
Since home energy use is responsible for 25 percent of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, the potential impact of companies like Cleaner Air Solutions and enbreeze is no small matter.
The main point here is that for the most part, these innovations aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams: they’re solutions that are available today, or are right around the corner, made possible by brilliant innovators and design technology. With so many of the elements of a more sustainable lifestyle in place, “doing the right thing” as an individual consumer or private household is less of a burden to bear and indeed a more appealing choice.
As a close observer of the energy and climate global scene since 2004, I have to say that 2012 was full of interesting news and I thought I should offer a selection of the most important ones.
Many countries unveiled last year large efforts to tackle climate change and high energy prices. On all continents, good news is piling up. However, I
A pair of ongoing studies show unexpectedly high methane leakage from some oil and gas fields in the U.S., findings that underscore concerns that the climate benefits of the natural gas boom may be overstated.
Researchers from the University of Colorado at
According to a new study presented by the Renovate Europe Campaign, weatherizing European buildings in an important way could boost local GDP by up to 291 billion Euros ($370 billion) by 2017.
Furthermore, gross annual investments of €41 to €78 billion per year in the EU could bring ongoing annual returns of €104 to €175 billion.
As the economy is tumbling across the continent, these investments represent very profitable possibilities.
With enough ambitions, the European Union could slash its greenhouse gases emissions and fossil fuels consumption significantly and create no less than two million jobs in the process.
Ultimately, deep renovations of European buildings would slash the Union’s oil consumption by up to the equivalent of four billion barrels of foreign oil per year (slightly less than 11 million barrels equivalent per day).
The report shows that for each billion euro invested by governments in renovations can return up to five billion for public finances.
During the conference presenting the report, Günther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Energy said “Energy efficiency is, for the European Union, the most direct and cost-effective way to achieve our strategic goals”.
The European Union has indeed outlined a goal of slashing its greenhouse gases emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 1990) and to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent as well.
Recently, the European Parliament has shown it is willing to go even further with up to 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2020.
Achieving such cuts would be tricky and would require drastic changes in rent regulation to allow landlords and tenants to share the gains from energy efficient renovations.
I have been advocating housing insulation as a great way to slash greenhouse gases emissions and energy consumption since the writing my Master’s thesis on the very subject back to 2005/06.
This new report brings further arguments to the ones believing that not only Europe can be more energy efficient but it has to do so, to save money, to create jobs… in other words : to get out of its current predicament.
Here’s an article co-written by environmentalist superstar Bill McKibben that speaks to the need for better public transportation. The authors point out that transportation generally contributes 27% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Since transportation is 98%+ based on gasoline and diesel, it comes with a huge price tag in terms of not only CO2 but damage
Plants “breathe in” CO2 and create biological mass. This is a form of sequestration. Forests, grasslands and shrublands and other ecosystems in the West sequester nearly 100 million tons of carbon each year, according to a Department of the Interior recent report. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica. In temperate
The European Union has been committed for years to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 1990).
As we have seen in a recent article, reaching such targets is very plausible and wouldn’t need much additional effort from the 15 historic members nor the enlarged 27 countries Union.
A new U.N. fund designed to manage billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change and called The Green Climate Fund will be based in South Korea.
The Board of the fund has selected Songdo, Incheon City, South Korea, the board of the fund over Mexico,
Energy is both the engine of the modern global economy and one of the biggest drivers of our sustainability challenges, including climate change. Providing access to affordable sources of energy will be critical to alleviating poverty and ensuring peace and prosperity for the 9 billion people expected to inhabit Earth in 2050. However, if we don’t find ways to
A team of U.S. researchers has developed a software system that they say documents carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas down to the level of individual buildings or street segments. Using publicly available data on local pollution, traffic counts, and building uses — as well as models of building-by-building energy consumption — the researchers from Arizona
The California Center for Sustainable Energy, with the California Air Resources Board, has conducted the largest social innovation plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owner survey in the state’s history. Recording date from more than 2,500 Californian PEV owners, the results have been released. The survey shows that nine out of ten owners said these vehicles
