Title: Reduce, reuse and renew: one possible approach to cut carbon emissions

Authors: Thomas E. Hoff, John P. Weyant, Chris Herig, Howard J. Wenger

Addresses: Clean Power Research, 10 Glen Ct. Napa, CA 94558 USA. Energy Modeling Forum, Stanford University, Terman Engineering Building, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO, 80401 V3393, USA. Astropower, 5036 Commercial Circle, Suite B, Concord, CA 94520, USA

Abstract: Global climate change has become an increasingly important issue over the last several years. This issue reached a climax at the Kyoto Conference in December, 1997 where the US agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 7% under its 1990 levels by 2010. This paper describes how distributed resources could be part of an overall solution towards achieving these reductions. It illustrates how a system composed of energy efficiency, distributed cogeneration, and distributed photovoltaics could reduce fuel consumption by 70% in the residential and commercial sectors. This could be a solution that makes economic sense independent of the climate change debate if implemented over the next 30 to 50 years, a timeframe which is not much worse for the climate system than achieving them in ten years, according to most analyses.

Keywords: climate change; distributed generation; photovoltaics; efficiency; cogeneration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.2001.000889

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 2001 Vol.15 No.1/2, pp.73-83

Published online: 30 Jul 2003 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article