Supply Displaced
These efficiency savings would displace the need for ALL OF THE FOLLOWING SUPPLY (illustrative purposes only, not in these exact quantities):
18 million rail cars
18 million rail cars per year carrying 2 billion tons of coalFor comparison: 17.4 million China rail cars carrying 2 billion tons and 7 million U.S. rail cars carrying 810 million tons in 2011, with the two nations consuming more than half of global production.
24 million barrels
24 million barrels per dayFor comparison: 30 million barrels/day (from 4,000-plus offshore oil rigs worldwide in 2011).
5 million LNG supertanker shipments
5 million LNG supertanker shipments (200,000 m3 per shipment)For comparison: 1.7 million LNG shipments worldwide in 2011.
44 million hectares of oil palm plantations
44 million hectares of oil palm plantations for diesel fuelFor comparison: 15 million hectares total global oil palm production in 2011.
50 mega-sized hydrodams
50 mega-sized hydrodams each equivalent to 3 Gorges Dam (total of 910,000 MW)For comparison: 1 million MW of global installed hydroelectric capacity in 2010.
68 million hectares of sugar cane
68 million hectares of sugar cane for ethanolFor comparison: 24 million hectares total global sugar cane production in 2010.
82 million hectares of corn
82 million hectares of corn for ethanolFor comparison: 162 million hectares total global corn production in 2011.
640 nuclear power plants
640 nuclear power plants each 1000 MW in size (total 640,000 MW)For comparison: 372,000 MW of global installed nuclear capacity in 2012
What about the rebound effect?
What about the so-called rebound effect? The argument that efficiency gains induce people to use more energy, cancelling out the energy saving benefits. This has been shown to be a manageable issue