Day 1: Energy
Amy Myers Jaffe and Raymond Orbach discussed energy use and production, and how those trends might change in coming years. Jaffe said that to change the US energy system, we must change our driving patterns, and Orbach said that cities should try to optimize their land uses to do so.
Video will be posted soon.
Amy Myers Jaffe on U.S. Energy Situation (.ppt, 1.5 MB)
Amy Myers Jaffe, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate director of the Rice University Energy Program, said that the Dallas and Houston city governments have been remarkably proactive in pursuing renewable energy. For instance, the Dallas government gets 40% of its electricity from renewable sources, compared to 30% in Houston.
That being said, she stated that cars and trucks have the greatest potential to change the US energy system. The US uses 33% of all the world’s road fuel, she said, compared to five or six percent in China. To reduce this number, she said that we must increase fuel efficiency and decrease the amount that people drive. We must also develop alternative fuels, carbon markets, and possibly congestion taxes, she said, moving toward the eventual electrification of all vehicles.
Houston is about average in terms of wasted fuel, behind cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. “When we think about energy supply, the question is not really, can the oil companies go out and find enough supply so that we can waste this much fuel,” she said. “I think the way we need to think about this is, why are we wasting this much fuel?” She also noted that it will be very hard for the US to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without altering driving patterns. But, she said, reducing vehicle miles traveled by 20% nationally would only require everyone to drive 45 miles less per week.
Raymond Orbach on Megaregions Energy Systems (.ppt, 1.8 MB)
Raymond Orbach, director of the newly-formed University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute and a former US undersecretary of science, agreed that land use is critical to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. He noted that for the first time in history, over half of the world’s population lives in cities, and he said that cities consume two-thirds of the world’s energy. Coming from a physics background, he suggested that cities should create optimized urban models emphasizing density and connectivity – essentially, creating an ideal city. While he acknowledged that cities cannot just start from scratch, he said that an optimization model could serve as a starting point for urban design. During the panel discussion, Jaffe disagreed, arguing that organizing stakeholders around specific goals is far more effective than any optimization plan.