Pr. Socolow and Pacala, in their stabilization wedges theory and their website ( the Climate Mitigation Initiative ) invite people to pick up their own wedges to create their own solution.
I chose mine and explain my choices.
As I explained previously, I personally would take a minimum of ten wedges, and below are my choices :
- Improve the buildings’ energy efficiency by 50 percent at least. As I wrote here and there, it can be done quite easily. So if Governments, companies and private persons really took the matter into it could be done easily (two wedges). This begins to be the case as we will see here on Friday.
- Transportation. Mankind will have work on the efficiency of cars / buses / trucks and improve their mileage on the global scale. Developing public transportation systems as well as video conferencing would also represent huge savings. (two wedges)
- CO2 capture and storage straight from coal plants, but these technologies are not ready yet. Most unfortunately Mankind can’t do without coal so we will also have to improve the yield of the coal fired plants. These two solutions could provide one additional wedge each.
- Developing nuclear energy with EPR nowadays and ITER later would prove to be a good thing. This could provide one wedge.
- Solar energies (both PV and thermal) and wind energy could represent one wedge each. The other renewable energies like biomass, geothermal, hydroelectricity could all together provide a wedge.
- Stopping deforestation and reforesting could provide one wedge or even two if tropical countries were helped in their economic development.
This makes ELEVEN wedges.
With all these wedges, we would achieve a cleaner air, a lessened threat of climate change and sustainable ways of producing energy via both energy efficiency and cleaner sources. New jobs will also be created.
To learn out more on this very interesting theory, please visit the official website of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative on the Princeton University website. You will find all the data one can dream of on the stabilization wedges, the authors and so on.
Source and further reading :
- Carbon Mitigation Initiative, on the website of Princeton University.