As companies continue to tinker with their business models in light of rising energy costs and the need to address environmental sustainability concerns, they are looking at every aspect of operations including supply chains. Becoming more energy efficient is, therefore, top of mind. Luckily, there are many different ways businesses can reduce energy usage and actively participate in climate change mitigation. And being more sustainable looks good from a public perspective.
There are many reasons to consider energy-saving strategies as a business priority. Today, many industries are excessive energy users with manufacturing, in particular, using the largest share. The problem is that much of that energy involves burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gasses into the air.
Going greener isn’t just beneficial to the business it also has an impact on the health of your employees and customers. Cleaner air means a reduction in exposure to gasses and particulate matter that contribute to chronic illness and impacts mental well-being.
And if the business is customer-facing, sustainability and environmental actions can boost the bottom line for two reasons.
The most effective way to move to a sustainability model is to gain expertise by hiring someone with environmental credentials. An environmental sustainability manager looks at every nook and cranny of a business and determines where there is room for improvement. They develop iterative processes to design new solutions and refine them.
Choosing the right technology and tools leads to improved energy efficiencies. Remaining current in terms of the technology being used will produce some of those efficiencies because new machines on the shop floor are being built by suppliers who implement sustainability and energy conservation in their products today. So pay attention to the carbon footprint of the technology the company gets from suppliers. Even devices like forklifts have eco-friendly alternatives today.
Old company computers often use more energy because they are loaded with redundant software and files. Computers draw more energy to complete simple tasks if they are not optimized. So take the time to go through the inventory of desktop and laptop computers the company uses and remove unnecessary data and programs. Archive old emails, eliminate data duplication, compress files using tools such as an online PDF compressor, and as result, reduce the energy used and system space requirements to operate the business.
Teach remote workers about implementing best sustainability practices. While a business cannot control everything done on the outside, putting guidelines in place for off-site workers and suppliers conserves energy. Discourage the use of unnecessary electronics. Instead of printing on paper, create a paperless environment. Use emails and text instead of words on paper. Have employees upload their files to the cloud which gives them access to anything they need at a moment’s notice while minimizing the company’s local energy consumption.
There is a growing sustainable technology ecosystem out there from which a company can draw expertise. Take advantage of technological innovations such as:
Once a business has targeted the energy-wasting culprits in its operations, the low-hanging fruit, it can then look for further reductions such as replacing reduce current incandescent and fluorescent lighting with LEDs. LEDs are brighter and last longer even though they have a higher per-unit cost. But operationally they last far longer and contribute to cost reductions. And where internal lighting is used, instruct employees to turn off the lights when they leave or implement automatic shut-off sensors to save even more energy.
Not enough companies take advantage of natural light. One of the reasons Daylight Savings Time was implemented decades ago was premised based on giving businesses more hours of natural light. A business, however, can situate desks and work areas near windows so employees don’t need to turn on artificial lighting. Natural light doesn’t just save costs, it contributes to greater employee productivity and well-being.
Monitor how heating and cooling are used. Unless products require a hotter or colder temperature, keep thermostats at reasonable temperatures to lower energy costs. During the day maintain comfortable working temperatures. But at night if the building is not being used, implement climate controls to save energy use.
There are many ways a business can make smart and sustainable adjustments today to be conscientious environmental stewards. In this article, I hope we’ve touched on many strategies your business can consider if you haven’t already. Help the business and help the planet. That’s what sustainability is all about.
]]>Consumption of energy is an unequal game. North America, Asia, and Europe are disproportionately energy hogs. They consume most of the fossil fuels burned which is the cause of anthropogenic climate change. Our North American and European homes need to be heated in the winter and chilled in the summer. And then there are the technological gadgets that fill our homes and have us consuming more energy than all of Africa, South America, and Oceania combined.
That’s why energy conservation leading to reduced consumption and lower emissions is an important weapon in our arsenal to combat climate change. This means we need to look at the contributing factors to our energy-hog lifestyle. It means changing our behaviour.
Making lifestyle changes is easier if one can see the goal ahead. The problem with climate change is we likely cannot or will not see the results of our behavioural changes during our lifetimes. As a result, we walk slowly towards the change we need to make rather than run to embrace it.
Here in Canada as well as in the United States and Europe, most of us live in cities. Canadian and American cities are relatively young. European ones are older. The buildings in the Americas are largely 20th-century constructs. The buildings in Europe are a mix of old and new. Whether dealing with structures dating back to the Middle Ages, or those more contemporary, very few of the legacy buildings that dominate our cities have been designed with energy conservation in mind.
That’s why cities need to come up with smart policies and programs backed by funding both public and private to address energy conservation. Correcting the energy inefficiency in legacy buildings needs to be a high priority. Doing it will help cities to get to net-zero emissions faster than almost any other policy or program they initiate. It is, however, easier to have aspirations to achieve this, than it is to accomplish it.
For example, my home city, Toronto, has more than 450,000 legacy buildings in its inventory with the vast majority built pre-1970. These include:
The vast majority of these buildings have not been designed to conserve energy. And so far, the city, other than looking at its own inventory of 500 buildings or so, hasn’t created policies and funded programs focused on energy conservation. The city’s website refers only to federal grants for homeowners to do energy audits and retrofits.
Why should Toronto act on energy conservation for its legacy buildings? Below is a picture of the City of Vancouver taken using an infrared thermal imaging scanner. The yellow appearing in the image indicates where heat is leaking from surface areas. The biggest contributors are windows and doors, with roofs and walls coming in second. For Vancouver as in Toronto, the vast majority of buildings predate 1970 when building codes didn’t consider specifications focused on energy conservation.
Today in Canada, most energy consumed by residential and commercial properties gets used to heat spaces. And based on what we can see from infrared thermal images like the one above, a significant percentage of that energy for heating goes right out the windows, doors, roofs and walls.
Cities as environmental stewards and as the place where most of us live can do far more to mitigate climate change if they would focus on energy conservation to support residential and commercial property retrofits. That means putting in place programs to replace legacy windows and doors with energy-efficient ones. It means programs that subsidize insulating walls and ceilings.
The City of Denver and its Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency has a five-year plan featuring a Climate Protection Fund. The money is to help improve the energy efficiency of homes, offices and industrial sites. Public seed capital of $40 million established the program which has since attracted private contributions to help increase its capacity to achieve the goal of zero emissions in all legacy buildings by 2040.
The Canadian federal government’s 2030 Climate Emissions Plan has put aside $1 billion for a green buildings strategy that includes energy retrofits. This is the money that Toronto describes on its website covering energy-efficient upgrades for new windows, doors, and insulation up to $5,000 per homeowner. There is no money for multi-residential units or condominiums. And the city isn’t adding any more funds or trying to attract money from private contributions to make the program more effective.
In the face of climate change, this lack of smart urban policy needs to change. Addressing energy conservation in legacy buildings can do more for reducing energy demand which means less burning of fossil fuels, and help in mitigating climate change. This is needed now for the sake of future generations for the overall health of the planet and the people on it.
]]>Established five years ago by energy utilities, and manufacturers in the industry, EE DAY promotes the sharing of information regarding programs, technologies, and policies that focus on efficiency whether it be in production, distribution, or consumption. This year’s EE DAY message is “Save Money. Cut Carbon. Breathe Easier.”
Our challenge as a species is to be able to achieve these three goals while dealing with the growing demand for energy around the globe both in the Developed and Developing worlds. Can we cut carbon and deliver more energy where it is needed? Do we have the capacity and solutions to achieve net-zero emissions globally by 2050 or sooner without negatively impacting consumers?
IRENA is the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that is supporting countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future. In a 2018 report, they describe a decarbonized power sector where renewable energy sources are responsible for meeting 85% of world demand.
But just what will that energy demand be? The World Energy Council (WEC) back in 2013 predicted global energy consumption will increase from 546 exajoules (EJ) in 2010 to between 696 and 879 by 2050, a 61% increase. One EJ is equivalent to almost 278 trillion kilowatt-hours. And a trillion kilowatt-hours is enough energy to light up a city the size of New York 90 times over.
In 2019, almost two-thirds of global electricity was generated using fossil fuels. The remaining third came from low-carbon sources including renewables and nuclear power generation. In the low-carbon group, renewables were responsible for 2.5 times the energy produced by nuclear sources. So the world IRENA is projecting as of 2050 where 85% of the energy we consume will be coming from renewable sources is an almost complete reversal of where we are today.
If all net-new energy produced between now and 2050 were to come from non-fossil fuel sources it would mean an increase of up to 333 EJs in total energy production or more than 92 quadrillion kilowatt-hours of power. These are numbers that boggle the mind of utility companies as they look at their current capacities and infrastructure.
The following chart illustrates the distribution of energy production by source across our planet at present.
Progressing from the left to the right side of the above chart we have energy production broken down by source from hydroelectricity to nuclear, coal, geothermal, onshore and offshore wind, and solar. The centre and far right of the chart provide typical energy consumption statistics. Both production and consumption numbers are in megawatt-hours, a tiny fraction of the trillions of kilowatt-hours that both the WEC and IRENA perceive will be needed to meet energy demands by mid-century.
Imagine the tens of thousands of renewable energy projects that will be needed, first, to deal with the net new energy demand, let alone facilities required to replace the existing inventory of fossil-fuel-burning plants currently being operated by utilities around the world.
Consider the challenge of replacing coal-fired powerplants. A medium-sized one produces about 2,500 Megawatts daily. How many wind and solar projects will be needed to meet the equivalent of current energy consumption. Or if we are to keep coal-fired powerplants through to 2050 and beyond, what will be the required carbon capture technology investment needed to add to existing facilities to make them net-zero, and where will the captured emissions eventually be transported to and stored?
Do we need to produce 879 exajoules of energy in 2050 for all of humanity to have access to reliable electricity sources? How else can the power gap between now and then be addressed? I can think of three improvements to the way we use energy that will mean less is needed.
A switch from existing HVAC systems to closed-loop heat pumps is one way for us to use less electricity to achieve the same end results. Heat pump technology has wide industrial applications as well.
MVR (mechanical vapour compression) technology is an open-loop version of heat pumps. A typical MVR system only requires 30 kilowatt-hours to evaporate a cubic metre of steam. Traditional evaporation technologies use 800 kilowatt-hours.
Cogeneration systems recover energy lost to heat or cold. Cogeneration units can be 90% efficient compared to traditional energy generation technologies which are 35 to 40% efficient. Cogeneration systems include spark ignition reciprocating engines, compression ignition reciprocating engines, combined-cycle turbines, open-cycle turbines, back-pressure steam turbines, and extraction steam turbines.
Infrared, high frequency and microwave radiation, ohmic, electron beam, and induction heating are all technologies that take electricity and convert 95% of it to heat. Whether applied to ovens and cooking surfaces in the home, or for use in industrial applications, less electricity is needed to produce the required results.
Utilities can look to solar panels on roofs and passive geothermal systems installed under homes to take away the amount of power that needs to be delivered to homes and businesses. Localized power generating technologies are available today and at increasingly affordable costs.
Solar and geothermal aren’t the only technologies to support localized and distributed power. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells, small wind turbine installations, energy power battery packs and mechanical storage technologies can increase energy capacity locally giving residential and business energy users the means to disconnect from the grid for much if not all of the time.
Distributed power generation systems technologies can be hardened to local environmental conditions more easily because the distances the energy has to travel from generation to consumption are far less taking weather extremes out of the equation. When you consider that hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are hard on utility power providers, the move to localized and distributed energy systems has considerable merit.
When you fly over cities in the Northern Hemisphere in the winter, if you had an infrared camera trained on the buildings below you would detect thermal energy being emitted into the surrounding air. The current stock of buildings throughout much of the world were not built to conserve energy.
In Canada, buildings use 13% of all the energy generated with up to 70% going into heating and cooling. If retrofitted the stock of existing buildings could cut energy use by 90%. And new buildings could incorporate materials and designs that support net-zero results. Net-zero buildings not only produce their own energy but the building envelopes (walls, doors and windows) are made from energy-efficient materials. A net-zero building can store the energy it generates and send surpluses to the grid.
Currently, Canada has only a handful of these net-zero commercial and residential properties in the country. It is also true for the United States, and the European Union. But in all of these countries building codes are being rewritten to net-zero standards.
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The world became a lot smaller place as transportation technology evolved faster ways to get from one place to another. Human settlement patterns altered from being predominantly rural in the 19th century to urban in the 20th. By the mid-20th century cities spread out spawning underground and above-ground railway networks and road infrastructure that created the urban daily commute from home to work and back.
The automobile became a personal freedom machine for those who could afford it. And increasingly in North America and Europe, automobiles were economically feasible for much of the population. This expansion was supported by a network of energy suppliers providing a fuel infrastructure for gasoline and diesel.
By the end of the 20th century in North America the era of relatively cheap gasoline and diesel was coming to an end. In Europe gasoline and diesel was already prohibitively expensive in the last 20 years of the century but that didn’t stop Europeans from buying and driving cars.
In the last decade of the century developing world automobiles and the infrastructure to support them started to take off with China and India representing the fastest growing car markets. This increased demand for gasoline and diesel to fuel these new automobile consumers.
Western governments, in trying to reduce fossil fuel consumption, began legislating fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. In 1997 Toyota, Japan’s largest automobile producer launched the first hybrid vehicle using a combination of electric-battery-driven motors along with a gasoline internal combustion engine. Honda soon followed in 1999 with its own hybrid, the Insight. This combination of electric motor and gasoline internal combustion engine provided manufacturers with a way to improve fuel efficiency. For a short period, one manufacturer, General Motors, designed and delivered to a limited market an all-electric car. But this experiment was soon squashed.
But automobiles represented only one type of transport. At the beginning of the 20th century land transportation for industry relied on rail and marine shipping to acquire raw materials and deliver finished products to market. But by the end of the century rail played a smaller part for these same industries as trucks became predominant. Ships went through dramatic redesign as well growing ever larger, whether moving bulk raw materials or container systems largely spawned by the rise of the trucking industry.
Even more significant was the development of heavier-than-air flight capability. The airplane and the infrastructure to support it became one of the great achievements of the 20th century. Air travel contributed to a rising global view of the planet, reducing the amount of time required for travel dramatically.
For a short time in the 20th century balloons vied with airplanes but became novelties by the end while jet-engines became predominant with propeller-driven aircraft relegated to specialized markets from the mid-century to its end. As airframes increased in size, global distribution of goods through the air grew rapidly in volume supplanting rail and marine shipping. Air passenger transportation briefly went supersonic with the launch of the Concorde and TU-144. By 1978 the latter was no longer in service and the Concorde’s last flight occurred in the first decade of the 21st century.
In the 20th century humans travelled in to Earth orbit and to the moon using rocket technology first pioneered in the United States, perfected as a weapon of war in Germany, and then enhanced further after World War II as the Americans and Soviet Union developed the technology further for military and scientific pursuits. Rocketry remained the purview of national governments with the cost of the technology far exceeding the ability of most private enterprise.
What will make the 21st century different? The planet has grown very small in the 20th century and will be even smaller still in the 21st. Our concepts of transportation will take on three perspectives. At the urban level we will need to enhance and invent new means of mass transit. At the planet-wide level, globalization will drive innovation on land, sea and air. And in space, extra-planetary transportation will alter our frame of reference as a species and representative of all the life on Earth.
In subsequent blogs on transportation we will explore the following:
1. Urbanization and Population Growth and its Impact
Urban concentration of human population will change our transportation models. Toronto, Canada, where I live, provides a great example. Between 2001 and 2006, growing traffic congestion increased the average commute time by 16%. While Toronto increased road lanes by 56% between 1986 and 2006, public transit grew by only 18%. Almost one-third of Toronto workers commuted more than 15 kilometers each way to do their jobs in 2006. In the Greater Toronto area and suburbs average daily commutes were longer. Toronto is one of the worst examples of unplanned urban transportation impacting on quality of life. But Toronto is not unique as a North American city. So we will look at this subject in greater depth.
2. Energy Conservation as a Transportation Challenge
In other sections of this blog we have talked about energy and the significant challenge that energy consumption has for our technical society. Governments are legislating industry to innovate to reduce the amount of energy needed for transporting people and goods. Reliance on fossil fuels is increasingly impacting health and the environment. Reconciling our need for energy and modes of transportation is something that 21st century technology needs to address.
3. Environmental Pollution, Climate Change and Transportation
Humanity by necessity is being forced to reduce its carbon footprint. We have talked about geo-engineering the planet in another section of this blog. But in this coverage we will specifically look at the technologies we currently use to move materials, goods and people and their impact on the environment and climate. How will we continue to do business globally using transportation technology to move raw materials, agricultural produce, and manufactured goods half way across the planet while dealing with CO2 and other pollutants?
4. Employment Patterns
We are changing the way we work today. The Internet, software-as-a-service (what techies call the cloud), virtual business presence, the disassembling of our bricks and mortar ideas about what is a business, have undergone dramatic change in the first decade of the 21st century. How will that accelerate through the rest of the century. What will the impact of the electronic commute be on the automobile industry and other forms of personal transportation? What will it mean for logistics and supply management when companies go virtual?
5. Alternative Fuels
Electric cars, biofuels, hydrogen, solar power, ion propulsion, micro-nuclear, what will be the fuels that drive our transportation technology in the 21st century? Will we wean ourselves completely from fossil fuels?
6. Technical Innovation
Electronic roadways, chained automobiles, smart vehicle technology, robotics, high-speed maglev and pneumatic rail systems, radical new ship designs, hypersonic aircraft, ion propulsion, solar sails, space elevators….these are concepts on the drawing boards and in the labs and R&D centres of innovators and entrepreneurs today. What is promising and realizable in the 21st century? What will remain a dream?
Enjoy the journey with me and please remember to ask questions and comment. I always respond.
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