{"id":5232,"date":"2015-02-06T16:54:11","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T15:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=5232"},"modified":"2015-11-11T21:43:07","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T20:43:07","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-much-energy-use-equitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=5232","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week – how much energy use is equitable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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How much energy use is equitable?\u00a0 This is something that has been drawn to my attention this week.\u00a0 Apparently the Swiss city of Zurich<\/a> has its own version of the Energiewende.\u00a0 Agreed in a referendum it aims for what is said to be a global fair use of energy.\u00a0 This figure is a constant 2kWh or 2 x 24 x 365 = 17,520kWh a year (per person) or current global energy usage divided by the population. You are probably thinking I don’t use that much every hour.\u00a0 Hopefully you are right, I would be horrified if you did but its more complicated than that.\u00a0 Most people in the UK would use almost that figure for gas and electricity alone, but not constantly.\u00a0 For example when we are asleep our energy consumption should be much lower and of course in the 6 “winter months” our electricity and gas consumption is much higher.\u00a0 Essentially we use much of our energy in bursts.<\/p>\n

There is another complicating factor which is outlined fantastically well in Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air<\/a> by David MacKay and one which we looked at in our book<\/a>.\u00a0 Our energy use is not limited to gas, electricity and transport but also indirectly by the stuff we buy from food to material goods.\u00a0 This makes our energy use much much higher.\u00a0 David MacKay reckons in 2008 the average EU use was 125kWh\/person\/day or 45625kWh, way above an equitable level on the measure above.\u00a0\u00a0 He also gives some examples of the energy use needed to make some ordinary everyday things.\u00a0 So a car takes 76,000 kWh to make and an aluminium can about 500W.\u00a0 At the moment we do not take this energy use into account and indeed its difficult to\u00a0quantify and count.\u00a0 In our book we came up with a plan to get this down to about 15000kWh\/year\/person.<\/p>\n

There are number of drawbacks to the idea.\u00a0 The first is that the figure is sort of arbitrary, it needs to be lower, not what we use now, which is doing great damage to the planet.\u00a0 Apparently above 1kWh constant energy use (around 8700kWh a year) there is no increase in the quality of life.\u00a0 (Of course many would disagree with that statement.)\u00a0 There is also a problem in how you measure the purchase of food\/material goods and their energy use in a given geographical area.\u00a0 Then there is a the really difficult problem of how to lower the current energy usage to the target value.\u00a0 Looking at the background material accessed through the link above it looks like Zurich is pulling all the normal policy levers (better public transport, energy efficient buildings, renewable energy).\u00a0 Worthy as this is it does not address the full magnitude of the problem, a 2kWh lifestyle assumes no car ownership (look at that energy use for making one above), much less flying*.\u00a0 Currently Zurich’s energy use although below the Swiss average (6kWh) has been rising and is currently around 4.2kWh although this lower than when they started.\u00a0 Despite my criticisms I think this is a worthy attempt and raises the issue of what is a sustainable lifestyle beautifully, the problem is getting there…<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n

* One way we get our consumption down in our book was to assume no flying, a perfectly reasonable assumption given the problems in replacing oil as the basis of aviation fuel.\u00a0 MacKay does not recognise peak oil in his book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  How much energy use is equitable?\u00a0 This is something that has been drawn to my attention this week.\u00a0 Apparently the Swiss city of Zurich has its own version of the Energiewende.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,9,17,3,15,4,1],"tags":[62,81],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-costs","category-food","category-one-thing-we-have-learnt-this-week","category-peak-oil","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-renewables","category-uncategorized","tag-energiewende","tag-energy-use"],"yoast_head":"\nOne thing we have learnt this week - how much energy use is equitable? 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