Energy for a Better Life

How can we turn losers into winners? How can a city, a region or a country reduce the environmental pollution caused by transport and by the heating and cooling of buildings in the private and industrial sectors? Greenpeace has looked into this question and published a study on the subject. ECO123 presents this study here and highly recommends it. The underlying aim is to slow down climate change, improve public health (by limiting noise, dust and exhaust fumes) and reduce energy consumption. Let’s take a closer look at this study:

When Greenpeace talks about energy transition, it is not simply talking about replacing one energy source with another. According to the criteria of the international environmental organisation, the question also involves improving the energy model based on three fundamental pillars: sufficiency, efficiency and renewable energy. Such a model improves the chances of achieving far-reaching decarbonisation whilst minimising the risks and costs involved in energy production, reducing inequality, improving land use and, in conjunction with recycling, diminishing the extraction of minerals that are of critical importance for the energy transition.

We should think about this model by looking at it backwards, starting from its end: ecologists call this process ZERO WASTE. Everything a person does – whether it’s driving a car, flying away on holiday, travelling to the Moon or Mars, preparing a meal, heating a house comfortably in winter or cooling it in summer – is all ENERGY. Movement is ENERGY. And instead of our burning petrol, diesel, coal or gas to produce that ENERGY, it can be generated sustainably from renewable sources. Essentially, this process produces neither exhaust fumes nor waste.

In the light of this simple example, sufficiency means that an electricity supplier no longer profits when a customer uses more energy; instead, suppliers only stand to gain when their customers save energy, i.e. when they consume less. What is really important here is not the reduction in the volume of energy consumed, but the principle of frugality. If I unscrew an energy-guzzling light bulb from my lamp and replace it with an energy-saving bulb, I am acting in a sufficient manner. Achieving a lower consumption of resources, avoiding waste, making do with what I have, reusing and repairing consumer goods, with my intention being to consume absolutely – not just relatively – fewer raw materials.

Efficiency can be clearly explained by the rational use of scarce resources and the cost-benefit ratio. A winner behaves more constructively than a loser, lives a more contented life than a loser, is more motivated and lives a healthier life than a loser. An electric car, for example, has a greater range when driven more slowly; in other words, if an electric car is driven at high speed on the motorway, it has a shorter range. Conversely, an electric car runs more efficiently if the driver accelerates and brakes less, as this consumes (much more) energy.

Energy is used efficiently whenever the driver brakes as little as possible and drives as anticipatively as possible. The efficient use of energy plays a major role in electric mobility, as does energy recovery through regenerative braking. Let me give you an example. When I drive down the hill from Monchique to Portimão, from an altitude of 550 metres down to 40 metres above sea level, I recover so much energy that, when I later drive back up the hill to my home, I use the energy I’ve recovered and end up saving around a third of the energy – in other words, I’m being efficient and gaining energy. At that moment, I wave happily to all those motorists who are racing down the hill in their petrol or diesel cars (overtaking me in the process) and thereby becoming the losers, because once energy is burned, it is used up and does not return; it is lost energy.

In this respect, any form of electric mobility is not only the cleanest way to get around, but it is also sustainable, efficient and sufficient. The same applies to electricity generation: shutting down coal and gas-fired power stations and replacing them with solar and wind farms makes sun-drenched and windswept Portugal a global winner. The country would save seven billion euros every year if it were to do away with dirty energy and would already be climate-neutral by 2040, whilst all other EU member states would only be able to report ‘net zero’ in their balance sheets ten years later: that is to say, not until 2050.

For Portugal, an end to the use of fossil fuels would also mean an end to dependence on US wars, such as the one currently being fought against Iran; it would mean freeing itself from any blockades of shipping lanes between Oman and Iran; it would turn Portugal from a loser into a winner…