3 Energy efficiency: reducing carbon emissions
3.1 Options for reduction
Chart 3 on page 20 of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s report, 'Energy trends' dated March 2009, indicates that the two key contributors to carbon emissions are domestic use of energy and power stations. Together these account for over 40 per cent of carbon emissions.
In a general sense there are three obvious ways of reducing our carbon emissions:
use energy more efficiently
replace conventional carbon emitting sources with renewable energy
clean up existing carbon-emitting technologies to reduce emissions.
Activity 6
Read the speech by Malcolm Wicks to the Energy Institute, in which he mentions the expansion of renewables and the use of carbon capture and storage to clean up fossil fuel power stations and then outlines the key areas for energy efficiency.
Sketch out on a spray diagram the key areas for action on efficiency outlined there.
2.2 Nuclear energy