Economy, Energy, Environment
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Which matters most in an economy?
•Money?
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•Energy?
aldercatkins 71014_MoneyHappiness_vl-vertical energy_plant_2_full

F2_2_CO2_GWP



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Growth depends on energy
Source: Dan O’Neill, CASSE

-However, Fossil fuels remain our dominant energy source, accounting for about 87% of the global
energy supply.
-Coal, oil, and gas are a finite resource which we are using up.
-Analysts suggest that we are nearing the peak in global oil production, if we haven’t reached it
already.
-This limit will have serious consequences for economic growth.

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Quantity of energy
World oil production
Source: Dan O’Neill, CASSE

-However, Fossil fuels remain our dominant energy source, accounting for about 87% of the global
energy supply.
-Coal, oil, and gas are a finite resource which we are using up.
-Analysts suggest that we are nearing the peak in global oil production, if we haven’t reached it
already.
-This limit will have serious consequences for economic growth.

Alternative Scenarios for Peak Oil



Richard Heinberg’s Energy Slaves
•If we were to add together the power of all the fuel-fed machines that we rely on to light and
heat our homes, transport us, and otherwise keep us in the style to which we have become
accustomed, and then compare that total with the amount of power that can be generated by the human
body, we would find that each American has the equivalent of over 150 'energy slaves' working for
us 24 hours a day. In energy terms, each middle-class American is living a lifestyle so lavish as
to make nearly any sultan or potentate in history swoon with envy.
Heinberg, R. (2005), The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (Gabriola
Island, BC: New Society), pp. 30-1

The limitations of decoupling
•‘Relative vs. absolute decoupling’
•‘It is entirely fanciful to suppose that ‘deep’ emission and resource cuts can be achieved without
confronting the structure of market economies’
•
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Prosperity without Growth by Tim Jackson for the Sustainable Development Commission
Relative decoupling refers to a decline in the ecological intensity per unit of economic output. In
this situation, resource impacts decline relative to the GDP. But they don’t necessarily decline in
absolute terms. Impacts may still increase, but do so at a slower pace than growth in the GDP.
The situation in which resource impacts decline in absolute terms is called ‘absolute decoupling

Rebound effects

Increasing energy efficiency tends to lead to increases in the range and use of products
Exergy is a measure of energy that takes entropy effects into account

CO2 intensity of GDP across nations: 1980–2006

The global carbon intensity declined by almost a quarter from just over 1 kilogram of carbon
dioxide per US dollar (kgCO2/$) in 1980 to 770 grams of carbon dioxide per US dollar (gCO2/$) in
2006. Again, steady improvements across the OECD countries were accompanied by a slightly more
uneven pattern across non-OECD countries.
Significant growth in carbon intensity occurred across the Middle East and during the earlier
stages of development in India. China witnessed some striking improvements early on. But these have
been partly offset by increasing carbon intensity in recent years. Worryingly, the declining global
trend in carbon intensity has also faltered in recent years, even increasing slightly since its low
point in 2000.
Source data for individual nations taken
from EIA 2008, Table H1GCO2, ‘World Carbon
Dioxide Emissions from the Combustion and
Flaring of Fossil Fuels per Thousand Dollars
of Gross Domestic Product Using Market
Exchange Rates.’ World carbon intensity
is calculated using total emissions data in
Table H1CO2 in the EIA database and world
GDP data (at constant 2000 prices, market
exchange rates) taken from IMF (2008) data
available online at: www.imf.org/external/
pubs/ft/weo/2008/02/weodata/index.aspx

Trends in Fossil Fuel Consumption and Related CO2: 1980–2007

Despite declining energy and carbon intensities carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have
increased by 80% since 1970. Emissions today are almost 40% higher than they were in 1990 – the
Kyoto base year – and since the year 2000 they have been growing at over 3% per year. The figure
does illustrate some relative decoupling: the world GDP has risen faster than carbon dioxide
emissions over the last eighteen years. But there is no absolute decoupling here. And a surge in
world consumption of coal has increased the rate of growth in carbon dioxide emissions since the
year 2000.
Source data for the period 1980-2006 for
fossil fuels taken from EIA 2008, Table
1.8; data for 2007 estimated using linear
extrapolation over the period 2000-2006.
Data for CO2 emissions taken from EIA 2008,
Table H1CO2.

Carbon Intensities Now and Required to Meet 450 ppm Target

The graphic shows the required carbon intensity of production under various scenarios. At present
it takes 768 grams of CO2 to buy a $ of output – although only 347grams in the UK. If we were to
achieve global equity we would need to be able to buy a dollar of output with just 14 grams of CO2.
There is a relationship between improvements in technology and changes in lifestyles and population
growth. Efficiency hasn’t even compensated for the growth in population, let alone the growth in
incomes.
Instead, carbon emissions have grown by almost 40% increase since the Kyoto agreements in 1990.

Quality of Energy
•Entropy law: second law of themodynamics: while quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality
of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time.
•Inherent tendency towards chaos or „less orderliness“
•‘a measure of the amount of energy no longer capable of further conversions to create useful work’
•
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•Entropy as a „biophysical limit to growth“
•We use low-entropy inputs and create high-entropy wastes
•Only the use of a huge amount of energy can offset this process

From linear to cyclical economy
•‘cannot turn pots back into clay’
•‘extracts fossil fuels and ores at one end and transforms them into commodities and waste
products’
•Wastes become inputs to new productive processes
•
•
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The appeal of a low-energy life
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Questions
•Is the exhaustion of fossil fuels a real limit on economic activity? What alternatives are there?
•Questions about the entropy law?
•Where does the energy come from?

Industrial ecology: designing with nature in mind
•A powerful prism through which to examine the impact of industry and technology on the biophysical
environment
•Examines local, regional and global uses and flows of materials and energy in products, processes,
industrial sectors and economies
biomimicry-design-spiral

Natural metabolism
•Porritt encourages businesses to ‘match the metabolism of the natural world’--biomimicry
•‘Buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste
water’
•‘Products that, when their useful life is over, do not become useless waste but can be tossed on
to the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for soil’
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Examples
•Novacem: render that absorbs rather than produces carbon dioxide •Biochar, which converts plant
material into charcoal rather than decomposing and producing methane •A rush-seated chair rather
than a plastic chair—or plastic that can rapidly biodegrade or be turned into fuel?
•

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Intensive farming
Organic farming, community farms
Waste disposal, new production
Recycling, reuse, mending
Construction based on concrete and materials with high levels of embodied energy
Sustainable construction using local materials that fix carbon dioxide, e.g. wood, straw, hemp etc.
Crop-based biofuels
Biofuels made from recycled waste oils
Contract

Remember to include all sources of carbon
Source: Carbon Trust, 2006.


Remember to ask what the energy achieves



• An economy based on renewable resources carefully managed for sustained yield and long-term
productivity of all its resources can provide useful, satisfying work and richly rewarding
life-styles for all its participants. However, it simply cannot provide support for enormous
pyramided capital structures and huge overheads, large pay differentials, windfall returns on
investments, and capital gains to investors.
7hhenders
Hazel Henderson, The Politics of the Solar Age, 1988

Principles to guide energy policy
•Energy is fundamental to life and to the economy
•While energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it flows from "higher" to "lower" forms – the
entropy law
•Living creatures survive by exploiting this flow
•All energy is ultimately derived from the sun, which is a flow of energy
•Fossil fuels represent a stock of energy (or capital) and so should be treated differently
•Economic development has moved us from using flow energy to stock energy; we need to reverse this
trend

Political principles
•We should reduce our energy demand to a minimum
•What energy we still require should be produced through renewable sources
•The energy supply systém is a public good and so should be under political control
•A profit-driven systém will lead to greater consumption
•Distribution and political control of energy should be organised as locally as possible

Policies for conservation
•Building regulations to include embodied energy of building materials, energy used in
construction, energy consumption in use, on-site energy generation and use of heat distribution
networks.
•Increased use of combined heat-and-power schemes: shared use of energy
•Energy rationing?
•Taxes on fossil fuels?
•How to protect those on lower incomes?

Renewable energy
•Use the market: feed-in tariff
•Avoid volatility: ensure fixed upward trajectory for fossil-fuel prices •Provide economic
incentives: fuel-duty escalator

Bedzed Development
•Beddington Zero Energy Development is the UK’s largest mixed use sustainable community. It was
designed to create a thriving community in which ordinary people could enjoy a high quality of
life, while living within their fair share of the Earth’s resources.
•BedZED was initiated by BioRegional and BDa ZEDfactory, and developed by the Peabody Trust. It was
completed and occupied in 2002. The community comprises 50% housing for sale, 25% key worker shared
ownership and 25% social housing for rent.

Design principles
•solves problems such as heating and water usage;
•help people make sustainable choices such as walking rather than driving
•the community have created their own facilities and groups to improve quality of life and reduce
their environmental impact.

Energy improvements
•Reducing energy demand
•• 81% reduction in energy use for heating 5.2kWh/person/day
•• 45% reduction in electricity use 3.4 kWh/person/day
•BedZED homes are kept at comfortable temperatures with fresh air
•using simple passive architectural techniques rather than high tech
•solutions. Energy efficient appliances, good daylighting and visible
•meters have led to behaviour changes.
•Zero carbon energy provision
•• Local waste wood CHP (efficient and zero carbon) and solar PV
•Solar PV panels provide 20% of the electrical demand. The combined
•heat and power plant (CHP) delivers the remaining electricity and
•all the hot water through a district heating system, using local waste
•wood from our Croydon TreeStation. The company operating the
•CHP ceased trading in 2005, so the CHP isn’t currently in use.

Indirect energy gains
•64% reduction in car mileage 2,318km/year •58% reduction in water use 72 litres/person/day
•60% waste recycled including composting
•86% of residents buy organic food