Environment, Economy, Energy, and Sustainable Development
The convention aims not only at stabilizing CO2 emissions in developed countries but also at ultimately reducing man-made CO2 emissions globally so as to stabilize the global climate. Environmental degradation cannot be singled out as an independent matter among various global issues. Also important are the interactions among economic development, stable energy supplies, and global environmental conservation. In the next few decades fossil fuels will continue to be the principal source of energy driving economic development.
Attempts to restrict the use of fossil fuels for environmental reasons are likely to have a negative impact on economic development and the overall availability of energy.
I offer here a strategy for mitigating “three Es” issues, that is, a strategy for environmentally sustainable economic development:
1. The consumption rate of renewable resources is not higher than its recovery rate.
2. The consumption rate of non-renewable resources is not higher than the rate of increase in renewable resource supply.
3. The emission of pollutants is within the absorption capacity of the environment.
In particular, a substantial reduction in resource consumption and emissions of pollutants is essential for the development of a sustainable human society on this planet. The most serious among them is the wide disparity in levels of economic development around the world. For instance, whereas overeating is a health concern in some Western countries, malnutrition and poverty are at a crisis point in other parts of the world developing countries that hope to alleviate their social ills through substantial economic development.
What, then, are promising strategies for the entire world to restore Daly’s three conditions? One answer is for developed countries to reduce their resource consumption through technological and social policies aimed at substantial gains in energy- and resource-use efficiencies and through the introduction of clean resources such as solar energy. Complementing this, developing countries should introduce energy- and resource-efficient technologies wherever this is economically viable. Developed countries would need substantially to improve their use of energy and other resources, and then to reduce resource consumption even under conditions of higher economic growth. Developing countries, for their part, would need to be sensible and flexible enough to introduce resource-efficiency technology and other economic lessons, where applicable, from the developed world.
The feasibility of such a strategy depends very much upon the future availability of technological innovations that have potential application for improving energy efficiency, recycling resources, reducing pollution emissions, and increasing biomass production. The first is the use of heat cascading, both within industries and between industries and residential/commercial sectors. The basic concept is simple: demands for heat energy differ not only in quantity but also in quality. A water-heating process, on the other hand, under normal pressure may require the same amount of heat energy but only at temperatures of 100°C or lower. Utilization of waste heat from the metal-melting process in the water-heating process would halve the total energy required for the two processes combined.
Such a heat cascading process has already been put into practice in various forms. The total efficiency of the plant is about 20 per cent higher than the efficiency of a normal, simple gas-fuelled power plant.
Of course, the appropriate location of complementary users of heat energy is essential for the effective realization of heat cascading. A combine could also include residential/commercial users who require only low-temperature heat. Owing to the relatively low price of energy, such a heat combine has yet to be established. Nevertheless, taking into account the importance of both energy resources and the environmental impacts of energy use, the idea of heat combines should be seriously investigated as an effective means of improving energy efficiency.
The second technology is the development of recyclable products. If still physically usable, the component materials can be utilized again in new products after any necessary treatment process. A key problem with a comprehensive recycling process is the development of production technologies that can produce products with sufficient mechanical strength while at the same time being easily decomposable. I strongly urge developed countries to develop these innovative technologies. The results would be profitable not only for developed countries but also for developing countries through more efficient resource use, and for the global community through reductions in waste discharge and resource depletion.