Cities¶
Why Cities?¶
Intersection of Tech, Policies, Markets
Urban population has the major concentration of populations, and it is continuously increasing
‘The Balance Sheet’¶
Energy Consumption vs Sustainable Energy Production
Key Sources of Consumption¶
- Transport
- Cars
- Planes
- Freight
- AC
- Heating
- Cooling
- Lighting
- Electronics
- Food
- Production
- Transporting
- Maintaining
- Manufacturing
Key sources of sustainable production¶
- Wind
- Solar
- photovoltaics
- thermal
- Biomass
- Hydroelectric
- Wave
- Tide
- Geothermal
- Nuclear (unclear whether nuclear counts as sustainable)
Key Concepts¶
Energy¶
- Quantitative property of doing work
- Conserved: can neither be created/destroyed
- Transformation: Light, heat, mass; \(E=mc^2\)
- Forms: Kinetic, Chemical, potential, mechanical (elastic), biological
- Units: kWh, Joules, calories, terms
- Fossil fuels: Barrels, short tons, cubic feet
Power¶
- Quantitative rate of doing work
- Energy per time
- Units: Watts, ergs, horsepower, lumen*
Emissions Intensity¶
- Unit: mtcde: metric-ton carbon-dioxide equivalent
- There are many forms of greenhouse gases, so we usually use CO2 equivalent
- by gas, per unit of energy, per activity, per GDP, by region
Energy Consumption¶
Usually shown using Sankey diagrams
Rejected energy is the by-product of energy generation that is not used (energy lost due to heat loss, air resistance, etc)
Deep Decarbonization¶
Goal of getting to net-zero emissions by 2050
Aspects of Urban Energy Planning¶
- Technological Implementation
- Geography
- Politics
- Land use & built environment
Key Issues with Monitoring¶
- City, urban definitions
- Types of emissions: upstream (import), downstream (exports & waste), goods & services
- Measurement of affluence: Wealth vs Income
Just Energy Transition¶
Environmental equity: reducing risk for all communities; distribution and effects os environmental problems and policies and processes to reduce differences in who bears environmental risks
Climate Justice
- Historical responsibility
- Inter-generational equity
- Disproportionate causes and burdens
- Grassroots movements
- Legal actions on climate change
Transformative justice
- Practices designed to create change in social systems
Energy justice
- Disproportionate access, harms, burdens
- Unions & worker
- Fossil-fuel dominated communities
- Create a lot of jobs
- Frontline/EJ communities
| Distributional | equitable distribution of burdens & benefits of energy and environmental decisions |
| Procedural | Right to fair process for different stakeholders to take part equitably in decision-making process |
| Restorative | Repair harm done to individuals, instead of focusing upon punishing the offender |
| Recognition | Recognizing that parts of society might suffer as result of energy & environmental decisions, and identifying individuals and groups who might be impacted by such decisions |
| Cosmopolitan | Reinforces all of the above, but states that “above forms of justice must apply universally to al human beings” |
Just Framework¶
Importance of land uses and land cover¶
- Total sequestration potential is uncertain
- Natural/existing ecosystems are more efficient than restored ones
- Policy mechanisms may be wildly different for different ecosystems
- Farm preservation vs biodiversity protections
- Carbon storage may fit into different regimes
Controlling the spatial expansion of cities is crucial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFGkZ64ng4&list=PLUl4u3cNGP63SEOB1q95TFs0hwyf1d7BG&index=5