10/8/14, "The Problem With Energy Efficiency," NY Times Op-ed,
On Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics to three researchers whose work contributed to the development of a radically more efficient form of lighting known as light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.
In
announcing the award, the academy said, “Replacing light bulbs and
fluorescent tubes with LEDs will lead to a drastic reduction of
electricity requirements for lighting.” The president of the Institute
of Physics noted: “With 20 percent of the world’s electricity used for
lighting, it’s been calculated that optimal use of LED lighting could
reduce this to 4 percent.”
The
winners, Shuji Nakamura, an American, and Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi
Amano, both from Japan, justly deserve their Nobel, and should be
commended for creating a technology that produces the same amount of
light with less energy.
But it would be a mistake to assume that LEDs will significantly reduce overall energy consumption.
LED’s
are but the latest breakthrough in lighting efficiency.
Consider the
series of accelerated lighting revolutions ushered in by the Industrial
Revolution. In the early and mid-1800s, for instance, “town gas” made
from coal was developed and used to illuminate streetlights. Whale oil
became the preferred indoor lighting fuel for upper-income Americans
until it was replaced by more efficient kerosene lamps. And then,
finally, in the late 19th century, the electric light bulb emerged.
Along
the way, demand would rise for these new technologies and increase as
new ways were found to use them. This led to more overall energy
consumption.
From
outer space, you can see the results of this long progression of
illumination. More and more of the planet is dotted with clusters of
lights.
There
is no reason to think that the trend lines for demand for LED lighting
will be any different, especially as incomes rise and the desire for
this cheaper technology takes hold in huge, emerging economies like
China, India and Nigeria, where the sheer volume of the demand will be
likely to trump the efficiency gains.
Energy-efficient lighting
has been, without question, a boon for economic development. Over the
past two centuries, the real cost of illumination in Britain has
declined by a factor of 3,000, largely because of efficiency
improvements, according to the researchers Roger Fouquet of the London
School of Economics and Peter J. G. Pearson of Imperial College, London.
This cheap lighting technology is used today not just to light our
streets, workplaces and homes but for televisions, computers and
cellphones.
These
productivity improvements are a primary driver of long-term economic
growth. Especially in developing economies, cheap, energy-efficient
lighting will almost certainly allow poor people to bring modern
lighting into their homes much faster than they otherwise would. And
that will almost certainly result in faster growth in energy demand
globally.
The
growing evidence that low-cost efficiency often leads to faster energy
growth was recently considered by both the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change and the International Energy Agency. They concluded that
energy savings associated with new, more energy efficient technologies
were likely to result in significant “rebounds,” or increases, in energy
consumption. This means that very significant percentages of energy will be lost to increased energy consumption.
The
I.E.A. and I.P.C.C. estimate that the rebound could be over 50 percent
globally. Recent estimates and case studies have suggested that in many
energy-intensive sectors of developing economies, energy-saving
technologies may backfire, meaning that increased energy consumption
associated with lower energy costs because of higher efficiency may in
fact result in higher energy consumption than there would have been without those technologies.
That’s
not a bad thing. Most people in the world, still struggling to achieve
modern living standards, need to consume more energy, not less. Cheap
LED and other more efficient energy technologies will be overwhelmingly
positive for people and economies all over the world.
But
LED and other ultraefficient lighting technologies are unlikely to
reduce global energy consumption or reduce carbon emissions. If we are
to make a serious dent in carbon emissions, there is no escaping the
need to shift to cleaner sources of energy."
"Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are co-founders of the Breakthrough Institute, an energy and environmental research center."
"A version of this op-ed appears in print on October 9, 2014, on page A35 of the New York edition."....
No comments:
Post a Comment