Tackling Carbon by Using Electricity Efficiently

1
Tackling Carbon by Using Electricity Efficiently

• Robert SocolowPrinceton Universitysocolow_at_prince
  ton.edu
• Greenplug Alliance Conference
• October 29, 2007

• For further reading, see two papers by Steve
  Pacala and Rob Socolow
• Stabilization Wedges Solving the climate
  problem for the next 50 years with current
  technologies, Science, 305 (5686), August 13,
  2004, 968-972 (and its Supporting Online
  Material).
• A plan to keep carbon in check, Scientific
  American, September 2006, 50-57.

2
Past, present, and potential future levels of
carbon in the atmosphere
ATMOSPHERE
ATMOSPHERE
4400

Doubled

CO

Doubled

CO
(570)
(570)
2
2
3000
Today
Today
(380)
Pre
-
Industrial
Pre
-
Industrial
2200
(285)
(285)
1500
Glacial
Glacial
(190)
(190)
Billions of tons of carbon
Billions of tons of carbon
billions of
billions of
(ppm)
tons CO2
Rosetta Stone To raise the concentration of CO2
in the atmosphere by one part per million
add 7.7 billion tons of CO2, in which are
2.1 billon tons of carbon.
3
About half of the carbon we burn stays in the
atmosphere for centuries
Fossil Fuel
Fossil Fuel
Burning
Burning
30
ATMOSPHERE
ATMOSPHERE
billion
billion
15
tons go in
tons go in
billion tons added
billion tons added
every year
every year
800
3000
billion tons carbon
billion tons CO2
Ocean
Ocean
Land Biosphere (net)
Land Biosphere (net)
8
7
15




billion tons go out
4
Effects of Global Warming

• Gradual climate change (temperature, rainfall)
• Extreme events (hurricanes, droughts)
• Surface ocean change (warmer, fresher, more
  acidic)
• Sea-level rise
• Changes to ecology
• Disease vectors, spreading to new places
• Which effects are going to be most powerful
  politically?

5
Arctic Sea Ice, 1979 and 2005
1979
2005
Arctic sea ice at time of minimum extent (at the
end of the summer melt).
Source NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio. Note Animation
of the evolution of arctic sea ice can be found
at http//svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003378/.

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Greenland ice sheet 7 meters (23
feet) West Antarctic Ice Sheet 5 meters (17
feet)
7
Historical Emissions
Billions of Tons CO2 Emitted per Year
60
Historical emissions
30
6
0
1950
2000
2050
2100
8
The Stabilization Triangle
Easier CO2 target
Billions of Tons Carbon Emitted per Year
Current path ramp
60
850 ppm
Stabilization Triangle
30
Flat path
Tougher CO2 target
500 ppm
6
0
1950
2000
2050
2100
Today and for the interim goal, global per-capita
emissions are 4 tCO2/yr.
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Stabilization Wedges
Billions of Tons Carbon Emitted per Year
Current path ramp
16 GtC/y
60
Eight wedges
30
Flat path
6
0
1950
2000
2050
2100
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What is a Wedge?
A wedge is a strategy to reduce carbon
emissions that grows in 50 years from zero to 4
GtCO2/yr. The strategy has already been
commercialized at scale somewhere.
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Fill the Stabilization Triangle with Eight Wedges
in six broad categories
Energy Efficiency
Methane Management
Decarbonized Electricity
60 GtCO2/yr
Stabilization
Decarbonized Fuels
Triangle
Extra Carbon in Forests, Soils, Oceans
30 GtCO2/yr
2007
2057
Fuel Displacement by Low-Carbon Electricity
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The Wedge Model is the IPOD of climate change
You fill it with your favorite things. David
Hawkins, NRDC, 2007.
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U.S. Wedges
Source Lashof and Hawkins, NRDC, in Socolow and
Pacala, Scientific American, September 2006, p.
57
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When we go on a hunt for wedges, start with
efficiency!
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Efficient Use of Electricity
Effort needed by 2055 for 1 wedge 25 reduction
in expected 2055 electricity use in commercial
and residential buildings. Assumes 40 of
global CO2 continues to be emitted at power
plants and 70 of electricity is used in
buildings.
Target Commercial and multifamily buildings,
worldwide.
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At the power plant, CO2 heads for the sky, the
electrons head for buildings!
1) Electricity in buildings, and 2) all forms of
transport are the components of CO2 emissions
that rise in a post-industrial society. They
are the two top places to look for wedges.
Source U.S. EPA
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Efficiency investments can displace investments
in coal power
100 GtCO2 not emitted 1 wedge
Policy priority Deter investments in new
long-lived high-carbon stock not only
carbon-dumb power plants, but also carbon-dumb
buildings. Needed Commitment accounting.
Credit for comparison David Hawkins, NRDC
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Four ways to emit 4 tonCO2/yr
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green plugs quest is important

• We are seeking to invent the post-industrial
  society.
• Reasoning by example teaches us what needs to be
  done. The charger system
• creates unnecessary anxiety Have I packed all
  of them?
• creates standby junk. Unnecessary materials and
  product flows, for multiplicity and redundancy
  (in briefcase and at the wall), negative green
  GDP.
• is demoralizing If we cant fix this, what can
  we fix? Machines shouldnt run us, we should run
  them.

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The cell phone and the plug-in hybrid

• The charger (an auxiliary) matters.
• The consumer assumes user safety (fire, shock),
  socially acceptable manufacturing, durability and
  ruggedness (surge protection, wrong charger
  protection), pleasing design.
• The consumer seeks, at low-cost
• convenience
• fast charging time
• smart interaction with grid (power is cheap at
  this minute because the wind is blowing and the
  system load is low)
• built-in discouragement of theft (access code)
• resource efficiency during life of charger
• cradle-to-cradle materials management (reuse of
  parts, going beyond materials recycling).
• Will the plug-in hybrid lead to house-level DC?

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The loaded household

• green plug is thinking about the loaded
  household, where a significant fraction of
  discretionary income is devoted to home
  electronics. These are heavily used and charged
  at home. Little is shared (one printer for
  adult). All chargers are always plugged in. (One
  U.S. household in six is loaded.)
• Also, the half-loaded household From lack of
  income or lack of appetite, total demand is half
  as large. (Five in six.)
• There are no other households in the U.S.
• In all, 60 million loaded-household equivalents.

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Consequences for U.S. Carbon

• A useful carbon benchmark for electricity savings
  is 360 kWh/loaded-household per year, or 30
  kWh/loaded-household per month. For coal power,
  the emissions reductions are one-tenth of global
  per-capita emissions, or 0.4 tCO2/yr. For average
  U.S. power, they are 0.2 tCO2/yr.
• The 60 M loaded households in the U.S. would then
  save 12 MtCO2/yr, or about two 1000 MW coal
  plants.
• At 4 tCO2/yr per car (10,000 miles/yr, 30mpg),
  about three million cars.
• Note that the entire strategy is several times
  more carbon-significant in Ohio than in Oregon.

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Amplification of Carbon Impact

• The savings when 60 million households save 360
  kWh/yr are 20 TWh/yr, about 0.3 of U.S. power
  consumption. I assume U.S. should seek to reduce
  power consumption by 50 across the board. Then
  there should be 150 other comparable
  opportunities in the U.S.
• The 60M loaded-household equivalents in the U.S.
  are 4 of world households (60M/1500M). The
  ultimate global multiplier for any savings
  strategy aimed at the loaded household is 25.

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Can We Do It?
People (we!) are becoming increasingly determined
to lower the risk that we and our children will
experience major social dislocation and
environmental havoc as a result of rising CO2 in
the atmosphere and we are learning that there
are many ways of changing how we live, what we
buy, and how we spend our time, that will make a
difference. We are in the midst of a
discontinuity What once seemed too hard has
become what simply must be done. Precedents
include abolishing child labor, addressing the
needs of the disabled, and mitigating air
pollution.