Quintupling global energy efficiency by 2060

Using energy more productively has delivered half of the past two decades’ global decarbonization. IPCC says efficient use could also deliver 40 - 70% of future decarbonization. (In the Pacific Northwest, efficiency met 60% of 1980 - 2015 growth in service demand and projected 70% to 2035. IEA has just doubled global efficiency’s forecast pace, as many countries pledge.) These gains are possible through observed strong technological progress plus the severalfold improvements achieved by “integrative design” - a proven method to optimize buildings, vehicles, equipment, and industrial processes as whole systems for multiple benefits. By transforming how technologies are chosen, combined, timed, and sequenced, integrative design yields decreasing cost and often increasing returns that echo the dynamism of energy transition agendas focused overwhelmingly on cleaner supply.

Capturing this vast new opportunity space and changing integrative design from rare to common looks achievable through ~20 known scaling vectors, some rooted in new design pedagogy for academia and business. These scaling vector complement established ways to scale supply-side solutions, but are less mature and need systematic testing and spreading. Capturing the rich synergies between supply- and demand-side elements could rebalance the whole portfolio of transition investments, accelerating decarbonization with lower risk and even higher profits.

By including integrative design, global energy efficiency could roughly quintuple in the next several decades, then more. But this cornucopia is the manual model; we must avidly pursue the scaling vectors to turn the crank. This could create abundance by design not just in energy but in all resources.

Register at weblink.  Lunch will be provided.