New Developments April 2017

Energy-efficiency labels for buildings are working Energy-efficiency labels have brought energy savings of up to 30 percent in large commercial buildings in Los Angeles. Buildings account for about one-third of the energy consumption and carbon emissions in the US. Three major certification programs attempt to reduce building emissions: the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Program, the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Better Buildings Challenge. the Energy Star program is the most successful voluntary energy-efficiency program in the world. It has saved consumers and businesses $34 billion in electricity costs and prevented more than about 300 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in one year.

Non-participating buildings tend to be smaller, older, and in less premium locations, but they are greater in number and represent two-thirds of commercial building emissions.

Efficient power converter for internet of things The "internet of things" is the idea that vehicles, appliances, civil structures, manufacturing equipment, and even livestock will soon have sensors that report information directly to networked servers, aiding with maintenance and the coordination of tasks. Those sensors will have to operate at very low powers, in order to extend battery life for months or make do with energy harvested from the environment. Those operations require relatively little current, but occasionally, the sensor might need to transmit an alert to a distant radio receiver. That requires much larger currents. researchers from MIT's Microsystems Technologies Laboratories (MTL) presented a new power converter that maintains its efficiency at currents ranging from 500 picoamps to 1 milliamp, a span that encompasses a 200,000-fold increase in current levels.

Renewable energy needed to drive uptake of electric vehicles Plugging into renewable energy sources outweighs the cost and short driving ranges for consumers intending to buy electric vehicles, according to a new study. "We found the majority of participants placed great emphasis on the need for electricity for electric vehicles to be produced from renewable energy sources in order for them to be a true alternative," he said. "For example, a petrol-driven vehicle produces 119g CO2-e/km, of which most are on-road emissions. In comparison, an electric vehicle produces zero on-road emissions," he said. "However, if electricity is generated from coal to charge an electric vehicle it produces 139g CO2-e/km well-to-wheel emissions, compared with only 9g CO2-e/km well-to-wheel emissions with electricity from renewable energy sources." Australia - the transport sector accounted for 16 per cent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and 85 per cent of these were generated by road transport.

Viable technologies for 80% GHG emission reduction

As we saw previously, certain renewable energy sources are more in abundance than others. The biggest is solar, and one magnitude smaller is wind. One magnitude smaller again is biomass, and smaller than that in one magnitude again are geothermal energy, wave-tidal energy, and hydro-power. Abundance however does not solely determine which technologies are most viable to reach the 80% or more greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets by 2050. This also depends on the maturity of the technology, and whether or not it emits GHGs to begin with. Given these limitations, there are four main pathways to reach 80% GHG emission reduction by 2050.

Nuclear power generation

Nuclear power has as advantages that during generation there is no emission of the main GHG CO2 or methane (CH4), and it can be produced continuously, as opposed to intermittent renewables like solar and wind. Japan possesses over 60 years’ experience with this technique, a large amount of infrastructure and knowledge workers in the nuclear industry. Before the 2011 GEJET, Japan had 54 nuclear reactors in operation. Since then most of all had shut down for regular maintenance, after which the safety regulations have tightened and prevented restarting regularly scheduled operations. Due to the stricter regulations, some of the older plants have seen early retirement. 42 reactors remain capable of a restart, of which 24 have requested approval to restart. Plans from 2010 from the METI envisioned 50% of the total electricity coming from nuclear power; a plan that could be reawakened.

Disadvantages to nuclear power include Japan’s tectonically active location, leading not only to a high chance of natural hazards with potential disastrous effects as seen in the aftermath of the GEJET, but also a lack of safe storage space for the small amount of waste that remains unable to be processed further after nuclear power generation. A second issue is the reliance on imported uranium, as this resource cannot be mined in Japan itself. Some of the countries that have the most abundant uranium resources are Australia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, with whom political ties are likely to remain good. The environmental impacts of mining uranium however are often not factored into the cost of the resource. The third issue is that only several kg of nuclear material are needed in order to create nuclear weapons, and an large nuclear power plant produces several hundreds of kg annually. One the one hand, this makes any nuclear facility a potential target for terrorists and raises security issues until a more peaceful global society is created. On the other hand, the current reality is that Japan cannot fully abandon its nuclear power installations due to the necessity of using the hypothetical capability of producing nuclear weapons within several weeks as a potential threat for certain international political maneuvers, as instigated by other countries. This situation is unlikely to change in a significant way until the global powers are reorganized, or a stronger focus on global peace is enforced throughout citizens of all countries, including their governments. 

Japan's current energy use

Information from the Japan Center for Climate Change Actions shows that in 2015 most CO2 emissions came from the electricity generating sector and from industry, with 39 and 32% respectively. Transportation is another large contender at 17% of the total CO2 emissions. 

[Based on information from http://www.jccca.org/chart/chart04_04.html]