Tech-Knowledge
Delivering goods and services in smarter and smarter ways
Efficiency is derived from the increasing quality of information and knowledge, which makes possible delivering goods and services in smarter and smarter ways, requiring less energy and material inputs and less waste, pollution, and contaminant outputs.
In the USA, for example, energy efficiency gains over the past half century resulted in delivering more than 25 millions barrels of oil equivalent per day — nearly four times the amount extracted by the century-old U.S. domestic oil industry in 2011.
The efficiency gains cut Americans' energy bills by nearly half a trillion dollar per year
The efficiency gains cut Americans’ energy bills by nearly half a trillion dollar per year, while also reducing millions of tons of CO 2 emissions at zero cost. Doubling this efficiency through 2050 remains the least-cost-and-risk (LCR) energy service option available for sustaining robust economic growth.
What if nations worldwide were to embrace this superior opportunity for delivering LCR utility, mobility and industrial energy services to the point of use?
Based on the best available assessments of existing efficiency opportunities plus what is emerging from the R&D pipeline, recent assessments indicate the following level of energy services can be delivered globally through efficiency gains by 2050:
Electricity | Heat | Transport Fuels |
|---|---|---|
Delivering the equivalent of 12,800 TeraWatt-hours (TWh) per year [12.8 trillion kWh] compared to 20,000 TWh consumed in 2009 worldwide | Delivering the equivalent of 46,500 PetaJoules (PJ) per year [353 billion gallons of gasoline equivalent] compared to 160,000 PJ consumed in 2009 worldwide | Delivering the equivalent of 80,000 PJ of liquid fuels per year [607 billion gallons of gasoline equivalent] compared to 80,000 PJ consumed in 2009 |