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    Keeping Sustainably Warm

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    It is freezing out there! This morning, my thermometer indicates some brutal 17 degrees below zero. Meanwhile, rather symmetrically, it shows 17 degrees above zero inside. So, I stop for a moment to admire the sparkling-white beauty of the winter landscape outside my window while sending thoughts of appreciation and gratitude to the modern-day miracle workers responsible for keeping me warm and cosy.

    On a day like today, I can’t help but ponder upon all the energy necessary to sustain this comfortable lifestyle of mine. According to IEA’s latest report, heat is the world’s largest energy end use, accounting for almost half of global final energy consumption in 2021, significantly more than electricity (20%) and transport (30%). Granted, industrial processes are responsible for 51% of the energy consumed for heat. However, as much as 46% goes to heating buildings and water[1].

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    Unfortunately, in 2020 alone, the supply of heat contributed more than 40% (13.1 Gt) of global energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the same IEA report. Heating remains heavily fossil-fuel dependent, with renewable sources hardly meeting a quarter of the global demand. Somehow this share has remained static during the past three decades. “To align with the IEA Net Zero Emissions Scenario, renewable heat consumption would have to progress 2.5 times faster, combined with wide-scale behavioural change and much larger energy and material efficiency improvements in both buildings and industry,” conclude the authors of the report.

    The sustainable heating recipe is quite simple then. Here are the three main ingredients, mix and add according to taste: renewable energy, behavioural change, and efficiency improvements. So, I decide to heed their advice, to the best of my ability.

    Starting small scale, I opt for the time-proven concept of ‘first warm the person, then warm the room’. I put on an extra pair of wool socks and a thick sweater and fill my tea mug to the brim with fragrant hot beverage. The truth is, though, I’ve already made my most crucial behavioural contribution when choosing an urban lifestyle. Cities are warmer than rural areas, and multi-family buildings are better at keeping the heat, with fewer external walls and the mixed blessing of warm neighbouring flats.

    As to energy efficiency, there are plenty of exciting ways to increase it in our homes, even without going to any extremes, like living in a ‘Passivhaus’[2]. Proper insulation and triple-glazed windows, like the ones in my building, can go a long way. Central heating is another easy choice for a city dweller, and it is also proof that there’s nothing wrong with some good old technology. Ancient cultures, from the Greeks and Romans to the Umayyad Caliphate, all relied on central heating to keep them warm, so why shouldn’t we? Yet I read in the local paper that in Sweden, 150 000 households rely on direct electricity to warm up their homes, a bit more than 7% of the two-plus million one-family homes in the country.

    Don’t worry, though; there is always the renewable energy solution that can provide sustainable heat, directly or via the electric grid, right? Ay, there’s the rub. For in these cold and dark times of ours, solar farms are not much help, and neither are the frozen wind turbines, just when we need them the most. Fossil-free nuclear power, meanwhile, is too controversial to touch, for Swedish politicians at least. There are no perfect solutions, I guess. I live in a smart city proud to be heated primarily by a waste-to-energy power plant, burning trash (the 1% or so not yet recycled) instead of coal or gas, that is. Although not fossil-free, it uses resources more efficiently than simply putting them in landfills where they would decompose and release greenhouse gases anyway.

    All of these personal choices and lucky coincidences together don’t amount to that much, you might argue, compared to the enormous environmental challenge ahead of us. Be that as it may, they keep me warm on the inside.

     

    [1] The remainder is used in agriculture, primarily for greenhouse heating, by the way, in case you wondered why the numbers didn’t add up.

    [2] The Passivhaus standard uses tested solutions to deliver net-zero-ready new and existing buildings optimised for a decarbonised grid and augmented for occupant health and wellbeing.

     

    Julia Axelsson, CAIA
    Julia Axelsson, CAIA
    Julia has accumulated experience in asset management for more than 20 years in Stockholm and Beijing, in portfolio management, asset allocation, fund selection and risk management. In December 2020, she completed a program in Sustainability Studies at the University of Linköping. Julia speaks Mandarin, Bulgarian, Hindi, Russian, Swedish, Urdu and English. She holds a Master in Indology from Sofia University and has completed studies in Economics at both Stockholm University and Stockholm School of Economics.

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