because one world is plenty
2000-Watt Society
I wasn't going to read Elizabeth Kolbert's "New Yorker" piece on the Danish island of Samsø because I'd covered it already and because I heard her talk on the radio; but a friend sent me a copy and I found that the second half of the article was all about the 2,000-Watt Society, a very interesting idea and a concept I'd been looking for.
2,000 Watts per person per year (or 17,520 kWh) is what we produce now. It is a baseline for sustainability, at least, this is what the scientists of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology believe. This 2,000 Watts includes all activities - working, eating, traveling, and investment in common infrastructure. Currently, Switzerland is a 5,000 Watt society and most other Western European countries are 6,000 Watt societies. The USA and Canada consume 12,000 Watts per person per year.
"At first glance, the objective of a 2,000-watt society appears unrealistic, but the necessary technology already exists," says Moritz Leuenberger, head of the Swiss Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications.
A 2004 paper [pdf alert] on the feasibility of the 2,000-Watt Society concludes that currently available technology can make buildings 80% more efficient, cars 50% more efficient, and motors 25% more efficient. I think that people like Ed Mazria* and Amory Lovins would certainly agree.
Recently, I heard Greg Watson, former director of New Alchemy Institute and now a senior energy advisor to Governor Deval Patrick of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (may G*d preserve her), talk about New Alchemy's 1980 renovation of an old barn into an auditorium and office space. They had insulated the building so well that only body heat and the waste heat from the necessary appliances were enough to keep the building comfortable. He called it a zero carbon building using 1980 technology and, when they presented their results to local architects, they were met with almost total disbelief, "How can you heat a building without a furnace?!!!" I can remember reading a newspaper report about a similar model energy building built in Denmark around 1976 where they had to open all the windows and doors on the night of the opening party because the heat generated by the crowd of people was excessive. I am sure that both the New Alchemy and Danish buildings had air-to-air heat exchangers to make sure that the indoor air quality was healthy. We could build these buildings in the 1970s and the 1980s and yet are still not building the majority of our buildings this way in the early 21st century, the decade I call the Uh-ohs (for obvious reasons).
My own observation, since the 1970s, is that the energy problem has never been a technological problem but a human problem, a problem of vision and will. What I like about the 2,000-Watt Society is that it gives us a target for an equitable and sustainable, if not restorative, economy.
My focus has been primarily on survival solar, essential solar, refugee camp solar, solar as civil defense - flashlight, radio or cell phone, extra set of batteries - because I know that scale of renewables is affordable and available now. Solar IS Civil Defense, I keep on saying (and said to Greg Watson and the staff of my local Congresscritter within the last few weeks). This is my baseline for the world economy and an improvement in the standard of living for a billion or two of the people who now live on this Earth. Provide everyone with these things and we have a renewable foundation on which we can build a restorative economy.
2,000-Watts per person per year, equally distributed, is the next step up in that economy. Within that measure, people all around the world can live full and productive lives of relative comfort, approach a standard of living that the Swiss enjoyed as recently as 1960, not exactly a subsistence era. Back in the early 1990s, the Dutch Friends of the Earth produced a study which looked at equity and sustainability in a similar way. They broke down the fair share of all the goods and services available per person per year within a sustainable framework. My understanding is that this book had quite an effect in Europe but I have never been able to get my hands on a copy to see in detail what their sustainable fair share actually was. The only nugget I remember is that everyone could have access to one three thousand mile plane flight once every five years, if we were committed to equity and sustainability. That is what strict justice and the world ecology could provide.
Counting up my own gas and electric use over the past year, I use 2250 kWh, leaving 15,270 kWh to provide for my food, clothing, entertainment, transport (I use bike, foot, public transit, and took one long distance flight), as well as my share of the common infrastructure (roads, water, sewage, and the like). The Swiss calculate that the individual share of infrastructure amounts to 900 Watts. If the same ratios apply between their energy use and ours, my share is 3600 Watts or 31,536 kWh right there. So, I use 33,786 kWh or 3856.85 Watts per year just counting my gas, electricity, and share of our infrastructure. [My numbers may be off as I am not an engineer, mathematician, or statistician. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I do vouch for the gas and electric figure of 2250 kWh but could have gone haywire anywhere along the line from there.]
But now, at least, I have a target.
The canton of Basel-Stadt is a pilot program for the 2,000-Watt Society. They have been working towards that goal since 2001, concentrating on transportation and urban development. The general outlines of the Swiss approach is Smarter Living and is as rigorous as one would expect [pdf alert]. Their timeframe is to reach this goal by 2050, halving their carbon emissions in the process. Personally, I think 2050 is too late and halving carbon emissions is too little. I agree with Dr James Hansen and Bill McKibben that we have to reach 350 ppm of carbon dioxide and do it as quickly as possible. Of course, 350 ppm CO2 is only short-hand for all the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere. It may be that managing methane and NF3 will be quicker and more effective than concentrating completely on only atmospheric carbon.
The thought experiment of a 2,000-Watt Society is a bracing one but an extremely useful exercise. Thank you, Sally, for sending me the article. You helped me find a piece of the puzzle that I'd been missing. Now I have to do the hard work of improving my practice to live within those limits, 2000 Watts, my fair share of the energy wealth of this Earth.
*More on Ed Mazria and the 2030 Project at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/27/18758/9963
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/1/214221/7410
cross-posted to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/23/111419/665
2,000 Watts per person per year (or 17,520 kWh) is what we produce now. It is a baseline for sustainability, at least, this is what the scientists of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology believe. This 2,000 Watts includes all activities - working, eating, traveling, and investment in common infrastructure. Currently, Switzerland is a 5,000 Watt society and most other Western European countries are 6,000 Watt societies. The USA and Canada consume 12,000 Watts per person per year.
"At first glance, the objective of a 2,000-watt society appears unrealistic, but the necessary technology already exists," says Moritz Leuenberger, head of the Swiss Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications.
A 2004 paper [pdf alert] on the feasibility of the 2,000-Watt Society concludes that currently available technology can make buildings 80% more efficient, cars 50% more efficient, and motors 25% more efficient. I think that people like Ed Mazria* and Amory Lovins would certainly agree.
In the envisioned 2000-watt society, the quality of life will not suffer at all. On the contrary, aspects such as safety and health, comfort and the development of the individual will in fact improve, and income is expected to rise by around 60 percent over the next fifty years.
Recently, I heard Greg Watson, former director of New Alchemy Institute and now a senior energy advisor to Governor Deval Patrick of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (may G*d preserve her), talk about New Alchemy's 1980 renovation of an old barn into an auditorium and office space. They had insulated the building so well that only body heat and the waste heat from the necessary appliances were enough to keep the building comfortable. He called it a zero carbon building using 1980 technology and, when they presented their results to local architects, they were met with almost total disbelief, "How can you heat a building without a furnace?!!!" I can remember reading a newspaper report about a similar model energy building built in Denmark around 1976 where they had to open all the windows and doors on the night of the opening party because the heat generated by the crowd of people was excessive. I am sure that both the New Alchemy and Danish buildings had air-to-air heat exchangers to make sure that the indoor air quality was healthy. We could build these buildings in the 1970s and the 1980s and yet are still not building the majority of our buildings this way in the early 21st century, the decade I call the Uh-ohs (for obvious reasons).
My own observation, since the 1970s, is that the energy problem has never been a technological problem but a human problem, a problem of vision and will. What I like about the 2,000-Watt Society is that it gives us a target for an equitable and sustainable, if not restorative, economy.
My focus has been primarily on survival solar, essential solar, refugee camp solar, solar as civil defense - flashlight, radio or cell phone, extra set of batteries - because I know that scale of renewables is affordable and available now. Solar IS Civil Defense, I keep on saying (and said to Greg Watson and the staff of my local Congresscritter within the last few weeks). This is my baseline for the world economy and an improvement in the standard of living for a billion or two of the people who now live on this Earth. Provide everyone with these things and we have a renewable foundation on which we can build a restorative economy.
2,000-Watts per person per year, equally distributed, is the next step up in that economy. Within that measure, people all around the world can live full and productive lives of relative comfort, approach a standard of living that the Swiss enjoyed as recently as 1960, not exactly a subsistence era. Back in the early 1990s, the Dutch Friends of the Earth produced a study which looked at equity and sustainability in a similar way. They broke down the fair share of all the goods and services available per person per year within a sustainable framework. My understanding is that this book had quite an effect in Europe but I have never been able to get my hands on a copy to see in detail what their sustainable fair share actually was. The only nugget I remember is that everyone could have access to one three thousand mile plane flight once every five years, if we were committed to equity and sustainability. That is what strict justice and the world ecology could provide.
Counting up my own gas and electric use over the past year, I use 2250 kWh, leaving 15,270 kWh to provide for my food, clothing, entertainment, transport (I use bike, foot, public transit, and took one long distance flight), as well as my share of the common infrastructure (roads, water, sewage, and the like). The Swiss calculate that the individual share of infrastructure amounts to 900 Watts. If the same ratios apply between their energy use and ours, my share is 3600 Watts or 31,536 kWh right there. So, I use 33,786 kWh or 3856.85 Watts per year just counting my gas, electricity, and share of our infrastructure. [My numbers may be off as I am not an engineer, mathematician, or statistician. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I do vouch for the gas and electric figure of 2250 kWh but could have gone haywire anywhere along the line from there.]
But now, at least, I have a target.
The canton of Basel-Stadt is a pilot program for the 2,000-Watt Society. They have been working towards that goal since 2001, concentrating on transportation and urban development. The general outlines of the Swiss approach is Smarter Living and is as rigorous as one would expect [pdf alert]. Their timeframe is to reach this goal by 2050, halving their carbon emissions in the process. Personally, I think 2050 is too late and halving carbon emissions is too little. I agree with Dr James Hansen and Bill McKibben that we have to reach 350 ppm of carbon dioxide and do it as quickly as possible. Of course, 350 ppm CO2 is only short-hand for all the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere. It may be that managing methane and NF3 will be quicker and more effective than concentrating completely on only atmospheric carbon.
The thought experiment of a 2,000-Watt Society is a bracing one but an extremely useful exercise. Thank you, Sally, for sending me the article. You helped me find a piece of the puzzle that I'd been missing. Now I have to do the hard work of improving my practice to live within those limits, 2000 Watts, my fair share of the energy wealth of this Earth.
*More on Ed Mazria and the 2030 Project at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/27/18758/9963
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/1/214221/7410
cross-posted to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/23/111419/665
Tags: conservation, ecology, efficiency, energy, environment, switzerland
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vinay Gupta on -
George, you rock. Marvelous post. In comparison, the power budget for village solar in the Hexayurt model is about 1 watt per house - just enough for a light, a stove that uses a fan, and charging a cell phone.
http://files.howtolivewiki.com/TIDES%20-%20Hexayurt%20Infrastructur...
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Permalink Reply by Lucas on -
http://imagina-canarias.blogspot.com/2008/07/sociedad-de-2000-vatios-1.html
George, I had started to write my piece today, before seeing yours.
I think we need to look at ideas and numbers in combinations. Sometimes people put forward ideas without numbers, like "lightbulbs", but "how many lightbulbs". Scale matters.
And I guess there's a first 10% to those 2000 Watts, for extra resilience. Hand-crank cell-phones included.
Thanks for your great post!
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson on
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It is an interesting exercise. I know I have a long way to go. I haven't done calculations myself, but I have done some general CO2 emission calculations (using standardised online calculators) and I come out reasonably well, something like 2-2.5 ton CO2/year, until I account for my air travel for my work and pleasure, which ruins the whole thing.
The saying "the easiest money earned, is the money never spent" goes for energy as well. Efforts to lower the total energy use (like the 2000-watt effort above) are going to make it so much easier to get the remaining 2000-watt taken care of by sustainable sources.
What I could really do with is a transparent energy use / CO2 emissions calculator. All the once I see are "closed source". I need one which is open and well documented. Does one already exist?
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Permalink Reply by gmoke on -
In the developed world it is our share of the infrastructure that generally overwhelms any individual efforts. That, and air travel. Unfortunately, as I grow older and realize that I haven't been to the places I've dreamed of, I think I'll be traveling more regularly by air - if I can afford it and if the airlines survive the higher (higher and higher) fuel prices.
I don't know if there are open source CO2 calculators but there should be published tables of CO2 emissions per activity somewhere out there.
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Permalink Reply by Vinay Gupta on
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Hm. Yeah, there are tables - it's really all pretty easy to work backwards from gasoline purchases and household utility bills - there aren't that many places you directly buy carbon, although food and consumer goods are harder to work out. (impossible, in many cases.)
From memory, air travel is about 1% of all oil use, and that includes airforces, which go through fuel like there's no tomorrow. I don't know why people fuss so much about air travel relative to, say, home insulation.
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Oh I fuss about it because my personal account is 90% air travel and 10% for the rest.
That said, the calculators are flawed (in more ways then what follows, of course). They assume somehow that my emissions are the same as someone who works at an office (or ignores the office).
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