08 Oct Energy used in our comfortable lives today – how much, source, and consequences

Air Quality Management

DQ1 Energy used in our comfortable lives today – how much, source, and consequences

 

We learn this week that it takes about 600,000 kilocalories of energy to run our daily lives on average – from cars and refrigerators and heating to electronic usage!  Can you see why people often say the average American uses the equivalent of a few hundred energy slaves to run our lives? (We use the energy of an additional 299 human beings in addition to the energy needed to feed ourselves.)

 

Most of the energy equivalent of the 299 large pepperoni pizzas is in the form of fossil fuels.  We can see from the readings and viewings that the majority of our air pollution issues are from fossil fuel use.  Remember the six criteria pollutants?  What are they and how are they related to fossil fuel use?

 

Not only is fossil fuel use the root cause of the six criteria pollutants, but readily available fossil fuels has encouraged a lot of different synthetic chemicals usage.  Think about all the air pollutants you are aware of.  Name one and look at the source of it.  Is it related to fossil fuel use?

 

You have your final assessment due in two weeks.  For your final assessment, you were to investigate the air pollutant of greatest concern in your location.  What is that air pollutant and how is it related to fossil fuel use?

 

What is the most energy intensive thing you do on a daily basis or the most energy intensive item you have purchased?  Explain how many kJ or kilocalories that activity or production of that item takes. How do you convert between kJ and kilocalories?

 

Once we get a sense of how much energy the average American use, let’s talk about energy sources and the consequences of those energy source use.  First of all, we should all know that all of our energy sources ultimately comes from the sun.  From this simply fact, it would seem most logical to use as much directly from the sun as possible.  The most direct would be to use passive solar heating and cooling, followed by either wind or solar power.  Your thoughts on this?  Fell free to ask any questions about energy sources and how one form of energy is turned into another form of energy.  You will be quizzed on this.

 

Take a look at this plot of energy returned to energy invested for various sources of energy.  Compare two of the energy sources on that plot and explain why there is a difference in the ratio of energy invested to energy returned.  Make sure to read what others have said and add something new to the discussion in terms of knowledge or insight.

 

DQ2 Thinking about optimal air quality management policies

 

We have been told for decades now about individual changes we can make, some of which were covered in your course content this week:

 

Designing house so that we have south-facing windows

 

Great energy efficiencies of appliances you use

 

Energy use reduction by behavior changes such as turning off lights and carpooling

 

Since it takes energy to make things, materials goods reduction would also mean energy reduction.

 

What would propel these changes?  Market signal to use less energy in general and market signal to transition to 21st century energy sources?  Is that what the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act would do?

 

Use the details we have discussed in this class related to the Air Quality Management Cycle to discuss what optimal policies for air quality management would be. Use graphics from https://www.gjesm.net/article_20581.html

 

How would a carbon tax or other economic instruments address the root of our air quality issues?  What do you think of an overall policy to price fossil fuel extraction as was discussed in several of your course readings and podcast this week.

 

DQ3 Communicating the need to transition to 21st century energy sources

 

In any management, and particularly for environmental management, you need to get the public involved.  That means communicating in such as way as to get a buy-in to the new policy and maybe even some action as well.

 

Some of us spend quite a bit of time each week working with the general public about the need to transition to 21st century energy sources.  Note that I purposely avoided talking about mitigating climate change.  Part of the reason is that climate change is complicated, leading to all kinds of phenomena such as the weakened polar vortex in January of 2019, which led to some extreme cold weather in the U.S. east of the Rockies.  Another reason is that climate change became polarized during the past 30 years.

 

Some questions for you to consider in discussing communications:

 

Which of the videos you have seen about climate change or need to transition to 21st century energy sources (either in this class or in other classes) have you found most effective in communicating the need to have optimal policies to transition out of fossil fuels?  Explain why you thought that video was effective.

 

How would you communicate the most effective policies to address the root cause of our air quality issues to the general public or to a specific group that you work with or socialize with.  Share a bit about your audience and how you would simplify the content we have discussed in class.

 

What resources in this class have you found to be most helpful as a concerned citizen in terms of air quality and its relationship to energy use?  How will you use that resource as a concerned citizen?

 

What resources do you think have been most helpful to your future work in air quality management?  How would you use that resource to communicate and what do you hope to accomplish with that communication?