The Cold Realities of Global Warming
Reflections on China’s Vibrant Business Culture and the U.S.-China Green Energy Conferences (Part II, and continuation of my previous entry, “Life on the China Bullet Train“.)
What’s a Watt? What a what!? A Watt! You know, the unit of energy that powers modern civilization. In order to understand the orders of magnitude required to replace energy consumption powered by fossil fuels with those of renewable fuels, it helps to have a brief “power primer.” For example, a laborer over the course of an 8-hour day can sustain an average output of about 75 watts. And 1,000 watts equals one kilowatt. Running a 100-watt incandescent light-bulb (do they still sell those?), a computer, a dishwasher without the drying cycle, and the refridge all for one hour, or running a single 900-watt space heater for a little over one hour, is approximately equivalent to one kilowatt-hour (one kWh), the unit of energy used to measure energy consumption in most U.S. homes. The average home in the U.S. consumes almost 10,000 kWh of energy each year. That averages out to be 1.37 pounds of CO2 per kWh across all of the United States, or 13,700 lbs. — almost 7 tons — of CO2 annually per home. The CO2 impact of 10,000 kWh is probably higher in China which relies more dominantly on coal, and lower in California which has a higher percentage of renewable energy used to generate utility energy than most other states. Of course that number is only one part of a family’s, or home’s, green house gas (GHG) footprint because it is restricted to the energy consumption inside the home, and does not include transportation and product consumption, including food. As we shall see, though, China’s energy mix may soon be cleaner than that of the U.S. because it is bringing on line more renewable energy faster than in the U.S. and more important, China’s average power consumption per family dwelling is much lower. At the same time, China’s economy and energy use are growing at a faster pace than in the U.S. so in real terms, China’s GHG footprint is now higher, and will likely continue to be higher than that of the U.S.
