Re: [Phys-l] Energy use (was CFLs)

["Rick Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

Please read my previous posts on the use of per-capita energy consumption. 
It is a VERY poor way to compare nations.

I'd like to see someone DO THE NUMBERS for a 50% energy reduction. 
California's 2/3 energy use doesn't impress me.  If the population centers 
(San Diego to San Francisco) had to suffer through sub zero winters and 
triple digit summers, the energy use would be somewhat different.  ;-)

My project groups struggle every year (between efficiency and conservation) 
to come up with a 25% savings--and we DO the numbers.  Once you double (even 
triple) small vehicle mileage and put in as many heat pumps as possible you 
are a long way short of 25%.  You can't do much with big trucks or rail 
traffic, and despite the inefficiency, air travel is not that big of the 
total.  You have less than 1% of the total energy use to be saved with CFLs. 
Industrial numbers are hard to come by, but since energy efficiency is part 
of the 'bottom line' we can be pretty sure that newer facilities are pretty 
energy efficient.  Certainly most commercial/institutional lighting has been 
fluorescent for some time now.  When you get into conservation, you again 
find the biggest savings would be something like massive car-pooling, but 
you've already cut
passenger use by maybe 2/3 so the energy savings are much smaller than 
anticipated.  When you do the overall numbers for appliances and maybe get 
rid of all energy using recreational vehicles (say goodbye to the small city 
in which I live--in the news lately--Elkhart Indiana) you find that is a 
small percentage as well.  We can ship all the heavy manufacturing overseas 
(Oh, sorry, we are doing that!), sell more Sri Lankan sweaters and mandate 
thermostats be set just slightly above freezing, hope the recession becomes 
a depression--no one working means no one commuting, foreclose the remaining 
single-family homes and move everyone into boxy apartments, vacate all the 
states (including California) West of the Mississippi, or some other 
draconian measures like these, but otherwise I really don't see the 50% as a 
reasonable, achievable goal.

Japan seems to be the 'poster child' here for efficiency--approximately the 
50% less energy usage per (person, GDP, etc), but there are tremendous 
differences.  Japan has 10 times the population density of the U.S. and only 
a fraction of the land area.  Most of their raw materials are imported (but 
whose balance sheet gets charged for the energy to mine and ship these?), 
the culture is much different (largely due to the high population density) 
but also for historical reasons.

So...I think we can struggle to a 25% savings--but I find 50% far fetched.

Rick

***************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
******************************
Free Physics Software
PC & Mac
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Spinozalens@aol.com>
To: <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Energy use (was CFLs)


> In a message dated 4/8/2009 7:37:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> hhaskell@mindspring.com writes:
>
>
> We  do use too much energy. And reducing our energy consumption by 50%
> is not  impossible. California manages to do quite nicely using less
> than 2/3 of  the national per capita average (even less if you figure
> the national  average without including California). Most of that will
> come from the  building and housing sector, with less from the
> electricity sector and  transportation, but the savings are there, we
> only need to develop the  political and social will to do it. The
> 5%-25% comparisons merely  illustrate how over the top our energy use
> is. Ideally, with 5% of the  population, we should us 5% of the
> energy, and with 20% of the population,  China should use 20% of the
> energy. Presently they use considerably less.  But as their per capita
> use increases, ours should decrease. In the  process, the total amount
> of being used world-wide will increase,  hopefully enough to give
> everyone a decent life, and not have a small  fraction of the world
> with more than enough and the rest with not enough  to live on.
>
> That is a world I do not want my children and grandchildren  to inherit.
>
>
>
> ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
>
> It's absolutely vital that we reduce our Carbon emission and clearly a big
> part of this is reducing our energy consumption. The per capita energy
> consumption in the United States is about twice as much as Europe. Studies
> show that standard of living is directly correlated with per capita energy 
> use
> but standard of living gains level off at  the  energy consumption rates
> reach a certain value.  The U.S with about 4  percent of the world's
> population used about 24 percent of the total energy  production in the 
> world. So we
> would need about 6 worlds worth of resources if  everyone used as much
> energy as Americans do.
>
>
>
> Bob Zannelli
> **************New Deals on Dell Netbooks – Now starting at $299 (A
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