Energy Efficiency and its Role in Our Path to Net Zero

First, I’d like to unpack is the notion of “Net Zero emissions”. A situation where greenhouse gas emissions equal greenhouse gas removal. In practice, this would have to mean that the release of all the carbon that has been locked up for millions of years underground (through the burning of fossil fuels) plus all carbon emissions from deforestation, agriculture and other activities is completely removed from the atmosphere by natural or manmade “Carbon Sinks”.

Despite the recent feel-good stories about net-zero pledges, carbon capture and storage and green hydrogen the reality is humanity is very far from net zero emissions. As it stands, human activity releases approximately 9.4 gigatons of carbon per year (GtC/year) into the atmosphere, the ocean (the largest carbon sink) absorbs 2.5 GtC/year land uptake which includes vegetation accounts for approximately 1.8 GtC/year. 

Humanity is currently adding an excess of 5.1 GtC/year into the atmosphere, for us to reach net-zero we will have to remove more than half our current emissions on yearly basis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has defined scenarios called “pathways” that forecast the impact that policy on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions will have on global temperatures.

If things remain “as is” with no policy change, we will experience a 5oC* increase in global temperatures by 2100, to put it in no uncertain terms this will lead to near-apocalyptic climate scenarios in many parts of the world. 

A more likely scenario is that there will be policy flip-flops with inconsistent enforcement leading to a 3oC increase in global temperatures by 2100, this will also be very bad especially for the global south, with India paying a disproportionately high cost. 

If you’re wondering what this looks like, consider the trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (experts consider the pandemic a global environmental disaster). This is an illustration of the impact that future climate catastrophes will have on a Populus, developing country like India. The most painful impact will likely not be because of individual climate events but their fallout. Crop destruction, droughts, floods, mass human displacement and extreme temperatures may push our inadequate public health and support infrastructure to the limit.

At this point, the best-case scenario humanity can hope for is a global temperature increase of or just below 2oC, this will require us to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and deploy gigaton scale carbon capture and storage technologies by 2060 for us to have any chance of staying below 2oC, this scenario also includes more intense and much more frequent climate disasters than what we experience today, but as it stands this is our best possible outcome.

  *Source: Nature.com

So, we’ve established that achieving Net zero is very hard. But, at this point also imperative. So where do we begin? 

This is usually the point at which someone pops up and says, “all we have to do is plant more trees and we will be ok”. The unfortunate reality is that we have passed the point of this being a viable solution. Don’t get me wrong planting trees has many ecosystem benefits, helps in sequestering large amounts of CO2 and should be encouraged. There is just one problem, the numbers do not work out.

A fully grown tree (older than 20 years) sequesters approximately 22 Kgs of CO2 a year, so a hundred trees sequester 1.8 tons of CO2/year a million trees 2.2 kilo tons of CO2/year. Sequestering our current yearly excess emissions will require approximately 28 billion fully grown trees requiring a landmass greater than the size of India and more fresh water and fertilizer than is currently available on planet earth. Other non-trivial challenges include the risk of large-scale carbon release on account of forest fires and impact on food production.

These challenges aside, the main reason why planting trees is no longer viable is the fact that planting a tree today will meaningfully impact emissions in 20 years, we need to start combating emissions right now to stand a chance.

So, this takes us back to the question. Where do we start?

While there is no easy answer, the most promising answer is Energy Efficiency. There is a triangular equivalence that is now at the heart of the energy transition.

“A rupee saved is a rupee earned” is interchangeable with “a watt saved is a watt generated” and also “CO2 avoided is CO2 sequestered”.
Money, Carbon and Energy have become perfectly convertible.

Well, almost perfectly convertible. In practice, saving a watt of power is always  cheaper than generating a watt of power, emissions prevented are considerably better for our planet than emissions sequestered, and this equivalence is often true in the case of money as well, not getting Starbucks is easier than generating a few hundred rupees. However, to illustrate my thesis let’s say that the monetary value attached to savings and generation is the same. 

Carbon, energy, and money have become interchangeable. So, we may assume preventing emissions from entering the atmosphere has the same net effect as removing emissions from the atmosphere (in reality, emission prevented to have a considerably more positive impact than emission sequestered)

AWatt saved = CO2 avoided = Rupees saved

While the Energy Efficiency equivalence is not by any means a silver bullet, it is the lowest hanging fruit in terms of technology, cost, and efficacy.

I’d like to illustrate this claim through a brief analysis of greenhouse gas emissions by sector. Global energy production creates 73% of global emissions. This can be divided into emissions from energy use in Industry, which is responsible for approximately 24% of global emissions, emissions from energy use in buildings accounting for 17.5% and transport for 16.2% of global emissions.
 

These large sets can be further divided into a large number of emission source subsets, let’s take emissions caused by energy use in building as an example, this large set makes up 17.5% of global emissions. It can be divided into emissions from energy use in commercial buildings making up 6.6% of global emissions and residential buildings accounting for 10.9% of emissions. Drilling down further this can be divided into energy use by building type, region, even by individual rooms or perhaps by application (lighting, cooling, heating etc.).

Now imagine energy efficiency measures were implemented at every level. Energy efficiency measures can range from low tech, like a sign reminding people to switch off lights and fans when not in use to IoT-enabled smart buildings that optimize energy use to high tech solutions like super-efficient appliances like BLDC ceiling fans, inverter ACs and heat pumps.

The cumulative impact of aggressive behavioral changes and technology interventions across emissions sources will by some estimates help reduce global emissions by approximately 30%* by 2040.

Energy-related GHG emissions, with and without efficiency, 2000-17 (left) and in the NPS and EWS, 2000-40 (right) I believe that one of the biggest threats to our climate future is the fact that we are pinning our hopes on future technologies that may or may not work, there is no guarantee that carbon capture will work or that we figure out fusion energy. 

   *Source: International Energy Agency

Energy Efficiency measures are mostly based on existing mature technologies, represent a minimal financial risk, in fact, Energy Efficiency projects often provide attractive payback cycles.

Most importantly EE works.

- Omer Basith, Co-founder & CEO at Virtual Forest