Discussion points: Strategy to Low Carbon SocietyGroup 4: Barriers and Opportunities
Japan-UK workshop for Low Carbon SocietyFebruary 13, 2008
Haruki Tsuchiya
Research Institute for Systems Technology, Tokyo
This is memo of discussion points on LCS with Barriers and opportunities for the sensitivesectors.
1. Basic Strategy
The basic strategy to Low Carbon Society in 2050 is to reduce energy demand to half of today’slevel by increasing energy efficiency tiwce and to increase renewable energy supply to nearly
half of the energy demand. This will make the carbon emission to roughly one fourth (1/2 *
1/2=1/4).
The facts are as follows,
1) There are many energy efficient technologies which will drastically decrease energy
consumption while keeping the same performance.
２）Some of the energy efficient technologies are expensive, but they will become economical
because of higher oil price and peak oil predictions.
3) Some of the energy efficient technologies, such as compact fluorescent bulb, hybrid car andadvance industrial furnace are already economical and save money today.
4) Renewable energy such as photovoltaics(PV) and wind power are increasing rapidly.

As

PV is expensive now but wind power is already cost effective. Diffusion of PV was supported
by government subsidies and the cost of PV has been on the line of learning curve withprogress ratio 82%(Whencumulative production doubles, then the cost goes down to 82%)5) It will take long time to introduce these new technologies, some political climate changes
are necessary.
2. Barriers and Opportunities to Sensitive sectors in transition to LCS
There are sensitive sectors in the transition to LCS.

Analysis of barriers and opportunities

are shown as follows.
1) Basic Material Industries
Iron & Steel, Cement, Paper & Pulp industries are very energy intensive industries. They1

use coal for their main material and energy sources.

Some of coal consumption can besubstituted with natural gas but they still remain using coal in 2050.

One of the possibilities

is to increase recycle of basic materials (steel and paper) and use waste in their production
process. Today the blast furnaces in iron & steel industry use plastic waste as substitute ofcoal. Cement industry use waste materials as fuel.
Economists predict the production of iron & steel, and cement will go down to lower level in
2050. They suggest the transition to Post material society, Service based economy, and IT
based industrial activities.
2) Transportation
Transportation sector mainly use portable liquid fuel, gasoline and diesel oil as they havelargest energy intensity per weight and are relatively safe to convey. Internal combustion
engine vehicles will be substituted with Electric vehicle and Hydrogen fuel cell in the long run.
But weight of battery and hydrogen tank are still problems to be solved. There are redesign
activities of internal combustion engine, and they will be more improved, 20% or more, thanhave been expected. Gasoline hybrid vehicles proved twice efficient compared withconventional gasoline cars and can be a good problem solving technology for the next decade.
Efficient technologies should be introduced urgently before old inefficient vehicles will bemassively produced.
3) Household and Commercial Buildings
There is revolution of lighting technologies. Compact fluorescent bulb can be use for frequent
on/off purpose as it has now long life time of 30,000 times of 10 seconds on/off.

12W compact

fluorescent bulb becomes economical within 1,000 hours when it is substituted with 60 W
incandescent bulb. The light emitting diode（LED）is widely used for 20% of traffic signals as
it saves the maintenance cost. The efficiency of LED will be better than fluorescent bulbs. It
will be used for automobiles when it is produced massively with cost reduction and will beused widely for general lighting propose
The problems are the time for the turn- over of stock materials. Even compact fluorescentbulb,, passive solar house, well-insulated house and new refrigerator are energy efficient,consumer will buy new products only when they are broken. So it will take long time toimprove energy efficiency in social scale. Some policy measures are necessary to promote theintroduction of efficient technologies.

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