How many emissions can we save through each of the energy conservation sectors?

[gribbon]

I have several questions relating to the diverse ways in which we may be able to combat climate change.

Firstly, what’s the potential capacity for renewable energy? Within reason, if we used all the hydroelectricity, solar power, bio-fuels etc that we could, how much energy could we produce? What proportion of the total energy needed could be produced?

How much energy could be saved in the individual sectors? How much in Industry, then how much in commercial, and so forth.

Most importantly, what proportion of total emissions could be saved using energy conservation, now, and in the future?

How much can we reduce our emissions by using energy conservation, everywhere possible, alone?

And, as previously mentioned, how much can renewable’s reduce emissions by?

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by fxzeu

Firstly, what’s the potential capacity for renewable energy? Within reason, if we used all the hydroelectricity, solar power, bio-fuels etc that we could, how much energy could we produce? What proportion of the total energy needed could be produced?

As for solar, the world last year had about 5000 MW of solar generating capacity. Total capacity of all sources was about 3,330,000 MW. Fully implimented solar could generate about 25,000,000 MW (source: Scientific American Sept 2006, special issue on Energy's Future, page 89)

Wind power globally is a little tricky. I have some numbers on US wind though. If the US fully tapped the wind power in the US we would generate about 11 Trillion KWhours or nearly 3 times what the US generated last year from all power sources (same source as above, page 86).

Cost of solar cells is one of the current hurdles as is the efficiency. Both are improving and soon should be economically viable.

Since you would need either an extensive battery system (so you had power when the sun went down or the wind stopped blowing) or a very spread out electrical grid (so the wind was blowing somewhere all the time) I would recomend nuclear or clean coal plants as a backbone to the power grid.

Originally Posted by fxzeu

Most importantly, what proportion of total emissions could be saved using energy conservation, now, and in the future?
How much can we reduce our emissions by using energy conservation, everywhere possible, alone?
And, as previously mentioned, how much can renewable’s reduce emissions by?

Energy conservation is huge. One of the best things to reduce a house's energy consumption in cold climates is insulation. Far more simple things such as using compact fluorecent bulbs instead of incandescent. These use about 20% of the energy (last longer too). I heard once that if everyone in the US threw out any incandescant bulbs and replaced them with CFBs we would meet the requirements of the Kyoto protocal (which we refused to sign )