Lean Energy
The application of Pull
ENERGY’S USES 1. Space heating, space cooling and air conditioning. 2. Light: street lighting, interiors by day and by night. 3. Energy embodied in materials (mining, processing, transport) and feedstocks (plastics, paint). 4. Industrial processes: machine tools, carpentry, pumps, process heat and refrigeration. 5. Service processes: retail, medical, dental, catering, research, education administration, etc. 6. Information processing, storage and transmission. 7. Travel and transport. 8. Agricultural production, food processing and distribution. 9. Construction. 10. Domestic equipment and processes. 11. Waste treatment and disposal. |
When thinking about making energy-sense of the future, it is helpful to see it as a sequence of three related tasks:L72
1. Energy conservation
This is about looking for ways of doing what we are already doing, or planning to do, but with much reduced dependence on energy (for a checklist/reminder of energy’s uses—double-counting included—see sidebar).
Industrial advance and economic growth can be understood as a story of getting more value from less—extracting more from each unit of input (land, labour, materials, financial capital, energy). In the case of the use of energy, this sequence of improvement has been dramatic and sustained. Compare the vast boilers of a Victorian factory with the generators and electric motors of today, or open coal fires with today’s central heating. Some processes are less energy efficient, in the sense that energy is used where none was needed before—the use of electrical equipment to do what was formerly done by hand, for example, or the case of being driven to school instead of walking. But, once the use of energy for a particular task has been established, ways are generally found to do the same thing with less energy.
This first stage in the sequence of lean energy is to get better results (in terms of energy-efficiency) than those likely to be achieved through companies’ general pursuit of competitive advantage. Some guidelines and inspiration are provided by the energy analysts Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. Among the conclusions they draw from their collective experience, there are two with special relevance to lean energy.L73
First, there is the iterative approach to solving complex problems. They point out that, if you make a substantial improvement in one part of a system, it is likely that it will open the way to another. That is, a sequence of possibility opens up. An illustration of this which will be familiar to anyone who visits a small local supermarket is the problem of getting rid of heat. The chillers produce a lot of heat. So the shop gets hot. So the chillers have to work harder. So the shop gets hotter. There is a positive feedback of energy-inefficiency. But suppose that a way is now found of breaking that cycle, by ducting the hot air outside: the shop cools down, so the chillers have to work less hard, so they produce less heat, so the fresh vegetables sell better, sales rise, energy costs fall, profits rise, success breeds success, and the owner discovers that she can afford a proper temperature control system for the whole shop.
Hawken et al’s own iconic example of this principle is the Hypercar. We shouldn’t take it too literally, because the result is an extremely lightweight car, which could be tricky to drive on a windy day, and would surely grind to a halt if going uphill fully loaded with family, luggage, and the dog (a system has to be powerful enough to cope with its peaks) but it has become a landmark in the literature. A smaller engine makes it possible to install a lighter suspension, so it can get by with a less robust chassis, so most of the components can be downsized, which opens the way to a smaller engine . . . Although you probably wouldn’t want to drive the theoretical endpoint of that process, the principle is good. And they offer many other (more realistic, and now widely-recognised) examples—improved designs in pumping systems, building design and construction, appliances, and city planning: it is all about seeing the system as a whole, rather than as a reductionist set of individual problems.L74
Hawken et al’s second (closely-related) piece of advice draws philosophical lessons from eating a lobster. There are some good meaty chunks to be found (in the claws and tail). But if you stop there, you have really missed the point, because half of what the lobster has to offer is hidden in the bits that are hard to find, and it takes persistence and a certain amount of know-how to extract them. In the case of energy conservation, that half really matters; it can take you to the point when (in Hawken et al’s phrase) you can start to “tunnel through the cost barrier”—the breakthrough when you are getting close to understanding, or at last taking into account, the whole system. Instead of tinkering with a system that is full of contradictions, you get consistency—a common purpose. Now the big cost savings can come.L75
With the application of these principles, significant improvements in energy efficiency can be expected. And yet, there are limits. Even lobsters are eventually finished. Energy solutions on the scale of the local supermarket are not enough. The supermarket itself is just one component in isolation. What we are looking for is energy efficiency transformations in a whole economy. And that takes us to structural change.
2. Structural change
Structural change does not stop at making energy services more efficient. It is focused on doing without them. It looks at ways of getting the results—the Food