The Technologies That Can Cut Carbon Emissions - Lab Report Example

This can be achieved by the use of energy wedges to achieve a stabilization triangle. This triangle is to be made of eight wedges with each wedge representing a reduction of one billion tonnes of carbon emitted per year and hence a total of eight billion tonnes in reduction (Margolis, 2003).

Experimental methods
The methodology that we shall use for this experiment will be the Stabilization Wedge Game whose procedure that we followed is as below;

• First, we choose 8 wedges that our team considered the best global solutions while keeping costs and impacts in mind,
• Then we found the Wedge Game-board that was provided in the back of this packet that had been supplied and cut apart the red, green, yellow, and blue wedge pieces also supplied,
• We then read the information on each of the 15 strategies in the Wedge Table that was provided and on which costs were indicated on a relative basis,
• We choose one wedge strategy at a time to fill the 8 spots on the wedge game-board,
• The four colors of the wedge pieces indicated the major category (fossil fuel-based (blue), efficiency and conservation (yellow), nuclear (red), and renewables and bio-storage (green). We choose a red, yellow, blue, or green wedge for our strategy and labeled the wedge to indicate the specific strategy.
• We considered cost and impacts. We viewed each wedge in terms of both technical and political viability.
• For each of the 8 strategies chosen, we filled out one line in the Wedge Worksheet. After all 8 wedges had been chosen; we tallied total cuts from each energy sector (Electricity, Transport, and Heat) and costs. We then used the scoring table to predict how different interest groups would rate our wedge on a scale from 1 to 5.
• We gave a 5-minute oral report on the reasoning behind our triangle a report that justified our choice of wedges to the judges and the other teams. (Hotinski, 2007) Wedge Worksheet

1. Record your strategies to reduce total fossil fuel emissions by 8 wedges by 2055.

(1 “wedge” = 1 billion tons of carbon per year)

• You may use a strategy more than once
• Use only whole numbers of wedges
• You may use a maximum of

- 6 electricity wedges (E)

- 5 transportation wedges (T)

- 5 heat or direct fuel use wedges (H)

Strategy

Sector

(E, T, H, or B)

Cost

Challenges

1

Efficiency Transport

T

$

Car size and power

2

Efficiency Building

E H

$

House size, consumer demand for appliances

3

Conservation Transport

T

$

Increased public transport, urban design

4

Efficiency Electricity

E

$

Increased plant cost

5

Forest Storage

B

$

Bio-diversity, competing land

6

Soil Storage

B

$

Reversed if the land is deep-plowed later

7

Biofuels

TH

 $

Bio-diversity, competing land

8

Wind Energy

E

$

Not in my backyard

TOTALS

E= 3

T= 3

H= 3

B= 3

10

2. Guess the score each stakeholder group would give your team’s triangle on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 = best).

Judge

Taxpayers/ Consumers

Energy companies

Environmental Groups

Manufacturers

Industrialized country governments

Developing country governments

Score

1

5

5

4

5

5

Results and discussion

In the group discussion, everyone contributed substantially and significantly and we all agreed unanimously on the choice of wedges. The wedges selected as shown earlier in this report were due to the relative ease of achieving them. Also considering the effectiveness of each wedge we agreed that our choices were the best. Our group majorly based our choices on the relative costs as they were low cost and this would attract the political will as well as public will in general. (Hotinski, 2007)

Strategy

Source of Wedge

1

Efficiency Transport

The double fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 mpg

2

Efficiency Building

Use best efficiency practices in all residential and commercial buildings

3

Conservation Transport

Decrease the number of car miles traveled by half

4

Efficiency Electricity

Produce current coal-based electricity with twice today’s efficiency.

5

Forest Storage

Eliminate tropical deforestation and double the current rate of new forest planting

6

Soil Storage

Adopt conservation tillage in all agricultural soils worldwide

7

Biofuels

Increase ethanol production 50 times by creating biomass plantations with an area equal to 1/6th  of world crop-land

8

Wind Energy

Increase in wind electricity capacity by 50 times relative to today for a total of 2 million large windmills

Each of the 8 strategies above has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by at least 1 billion tons per year by 2054, or 1 wedge. A combination of strategies will be needed to build the 7 wedges of the stabilization triangle.