2000-Watt Society

2000-Watt Society

A Swiss Campaign

By Alexander Wokaun

How Can We define an average amount of power that each citizen consumes — continuously?
From statistics, we take a nation’s gross annual primary energy consumption (in Joule), divide it first
by the number of inhabitants, and then by the length of a year in seconds — and end up with an average
amount of power measured in watts. the world average of this quantity happens to be 2,200 watts,
with very large differences among countries and world regions. Is it possible that industrialized countries
could maintain their level of energy services, and yet reduce primary energy consumption to an extent
that corresponds to 2000 watts? the motivation behind this idea is climate protection. It would ensure
that, even with industrialization of large world regions, global primary energy demand would rise no steeper
than the increase in world population.

For Switzerland, where the concept was conceived, present consumption is at the level of 5,200
watts. researchers looked at the various sectors of the economy and analyzed the potential for energy
reduction while maintaining the same level of service. For example, using modern building technology and
insulation would reduce the heating energy demands of dwellings by as much as 80 percent. For transportation, working on the car body and chassis, using lightweight construction, reducing air drag and rolling resistance, would reduce the mechanical energy demand by as much as 50 percent. this number is
multiplied by the efficiency of the power train, where fuel consumption can be cut by half if a conventional
gasoline engine is replaced by a fuel cell. In industry, there’s great potential for energy reductions in
processes, materials, and utilization efficiency. of course, efficiency of the full fuel chains is the name of
the game throughout the energy system.
Scrutinizing these numbers, the researchers found that cutting the energy use per citizen to 2,000 watts
would indeed be possible if, by 2050, the best then available technology was installed in each instance.
this is a metaphor for the desired approach, and the real world scenarios will be less than ideal. Politics has
therefore looked at how far we would get with a few ambitious, but realistic postulates, such as adopting
stringent building standards, making extensive use of heat pumps for residential buildings, raising the fuel
efficiency of cars to the demonstrated 80 mpg, and fully exploiting the potential of biomass and biofuels.
they concluded that, by 2050, Swiss society could reach a 4,000-watt/cap as an intermediate step, while at the same time cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent — a big and highly desirable step toward reaching climate-protection goals.