Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5
. Princeton stabilization wedges
Option Equivalent to 1 gigatonne of carbon per year wedge
Energy efficiency and conservation
Economy-wide carbon intensity reduction (emissions/
GDP)
Reduce carbon intensity by an additional 0.15% per year
Increase fuel economy for 2 billion cars from 30 to 60
mpg
1. Efficient vehicles
Decrease car travel for 2 billion 30-mpg cars from 10,000
to 5,000 miles per year
2. Reduced use of vehicles
Cut carbon emissions by one-fourth in buildings and appli-
ances
3. Efficient buildings
Produce twice today's coal power output at 60% instead of
today's 32% efficiency
4. Efficient coal plants
Fuel shift
Replace 1,400 gigawatts (GW) of coal plants with gas
plants
5. Gas power for coal power
CO
2
CCS
Introduce CCS at 800 GW coal or 1,600 GW natural gas
plants
6. Capture CO
2
at power plant
Introduce CCS at synfuels plants producing 30 million
barrels a day from coal
7. Capture CO
2
at coal-to-synfuels plants
Nuclear fission
8. Nuclear power for coal power
Add 700 GW (twice the current capacity)
Renewable electricity and fuels
Add 2 million 1-megawatt-peak windmills (50 times the
current capacity)
9. Wind power for coal power
10. Photovoltaic (PV) power for coal power
Add 2,000 GW-peak PV (700 times the current capacity)
Add 100 times the current Brazil or US ethanol production
(one-sixth of world cropland)
11. Biomass fuel for fossil fuel
Forests and agricultural soils
Decrease tropical deforestation to zero instead of 0.5 GtC
emission per year, and establish 300 million hectares of
new tree plantations (twice the current rate)
12. Reduced deforestation, plus reforestation, afforesta-
tion, and new plantations
13. Conservation tillage
Apply to all cropland (ten times the current usage)
