President’s Message
Consider these facts: In 1800, the world’s population was 1 billion and there was just one city on the
planet with a population over 1 million
inhabitants – London. Today, only 210
years later, global population is over 6. 8
billion and there are 287 cities on the
planet with a population over 1 million. In
fact, according to World Watch Institute,
each of the 100 largest cities on the planet
today has an average population over
5 million and there are 18 “mega-cities”
with populations exceeding 10 million.
While the global birth rate has declined
from a peak of 2.2% in 1963, world
population is anticipated to grow to over
9 billion people (nearly a 50% increase) by
2040. In just 30 more years, as population
migration to urban centers accelerates,
the world’s cities must accommodate
nearly 5 billion people. This is a staggering
requirement that will place huge demands
on urban energy infrastructure.
Today, the energy appetite of this
growing global economy consumes over
86 million barrels of oil, 245 billion cubic
feet of natural gas, 15 million tons of
coal, and 500,000 pounds of uranium
every single day. Looking only at oil, current consumption is equal to burning one
thousand barrels of oil per second. Let me
repeat … one thousand barrels, or 42,000
gallons of oil every second Where will
we be in another thirty years when global
population has increased by 50%?
It is pretty clear that, as IDEA begins
our second century, we must step up
our efforts to accelerate the transition to cleaner, more efficient use of
thermal energy in our cities, communities and campuses. We can simply no
longer afford to throw away two-thirds
of the fuel we burn to make electricity
as “waste heat.” We must build thermal energy distribution infrastructure to
recover heat from power generation and
other industrial sources of surplus energy.
I would submit that for any city, campus
or community claiming to be “green”
or “sustainable,” it must feature robust
district energy infrastructure that recovers and efficiently uses thermal energy.
Continuing to ignore the importance and
value of thermal energy imperils the economic stability and environmental viability
of the world’s cities and dramatically discounts the value of energy resources.
Recovering useful thermal energy is
the low-hanging fruit in today’s energy
mix. Here in the U.S., the extraction of
fossil energy supplies resulted in the
tragic loss of 29 coal miners in the Upper
Big Branch coal mine accident in West
Virginia on April 5, 2010. The harsh reali-ties of human risk in mining were just
beginning to penetrate consumer consciousness when the somber images of a
mourning West Virginia coal community
were literally blown off the front page
two weeks later by the horrific conflagra-
Recovering useful thermal
energy is the low-hanging fruit
in today’s energy mix.
tion that killed 11 and injured dozens
aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in
the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, unrelenting news coverage has shown nearly
continuous video of the unabated flow
of oil gushing into the Gulf waters, paralyzing the local economy and despoiling
the once bountiful ocean ecosystem with
unimaginable long-term damage. The
consequential environmental remediation
costs are simply staggering, if not
heartbreaking.
Yet our junkie/dealer addiction
to fossil fuels continues almost
unabated. The oil extraction industry
employs thousands of people and is
fundamental to local economies, so a
drilling moratorium in the Gulf has been
overruled by a local court. Elsewhere,
since it’s not in our backyard, we tend
to shrug it off and return to business as
usual in the brown states where fuels are
extracted and processed, and in green
states where fuel is imported and largely
just consumed. These state-by-state
differences in energy perspective have
led to dysfunctional debate in Congress
on energy and climate legislation. Lost
in all the media furor about political
“shakedowns” and “apologies” is the
fundamental recognition that exploiting
fossil fuels has profound economic
implications. Today’s cheap energy is
tomorrow’s cleanup cost, diminished
resource or long-term liability. The full
cost of fossil fuel damage to the Gulf
will never be fully recovered in terms of
local jobs lost, businesses shuttered and
damage and depletion of the ecosystem.
There are significant external costs to
fossil fuel dependence that are not
reflected in today’s price per barrel, and
we can no longer kick the can down the
road to the next generation.
That is not to say that we can snap
our fingers to switch over to alternative resources and eliminate combustion
of oil, gas and coal overnight. The U.S.
currently sends over $1 billion offshore
every day for foreign oil. But clearly, the
handwriting is on the wall. Population
growth, coupled with finite resources,
demands bold action. If these recent
events fail to stimulate meaningful
debate and timely action on energy and
climate policy, I don’t know what will.
