The UK Transport Sector and the Kaya Identity: How a maths equation can help your life
Moving to EVs is cheaper and healthier - it needs no personal sacrifice. It saves the planet too, but that’s just by the by.
Mass electrification of transport, much as mass electrification of lighting, is a signal of energy progress – from the inefficient burning of fuels to the more efficient, cheaper and cleaner use of electricity.
It is analogous to the shift from candles and gas lamps to the incandescent light bulb, and now LEDs.
In that way, it can be argued that the more reliant a country is on fossil fuels, the less resilient its energy system, as only a few countries in the world rely on exporting fossil fuels as a basis of their economy.
In contrast, the vast majority of countries have to import fossil fuels, unless they can create alternative energy. That - in a nutshell - is the basis of the energy transition underway.
Put another way – the more a country emits CO2, the less forward-looking its energy economy now that there are viable technological alternatives.
There is a mathematical expression to show this:
The Kaya Identity (ref) breaks down global and national or sectoral CO2 emissions into four parts:
Population - i.e. the emitters
GDP per population – i.e. how much activity of value and wealth it is producing
The energy it uses to create all that wealth and value
The carbon intensity of that energy
In essence, whether by population or sector, the Kaya identity looks at how many emitters there are, how active they are, how much energy they use to be that active and how carbon intensive that energy is.
Et voila – you then have CO2 emissions broken down.
Why is this important?
The four elements present four levers you can pull to reduce (or increase) carbon emissions.
Example - a big population, with lots of economic activity, and lots of energy required for it (eg: heavy manufacturing) to build houses or ships and so on, and lots of fossil fuels to make that energy (eg: coal) to power electricity and heat will create massive amounts of CO2. Historically, this happened in the UK, latterly this is the case in the US and China
This has led a number of commentators to suggest a way out of the CO2 emissions problem could be to reduce populations and economic growth and activity.
Both of these are of course on a practical basis problematic and in any event, very slow-paced options which do not meet immediate climate change innovations.
Thus, the burden of reducing CO2 emission remains with the latter two elements of the Kaya Identity: reducing the amount of energy required for economic growth (efficiency) and reducing the amount of carbon required for that amount of energy (decarbonisation).
So – to re-state the equation:
CO2 emissions = Population x Economic Activity x Energy Required x CO2 emitted by Energy
And so to road transport in the UK.
And to recall: UK (and global) transport CO2 emissions are now the largest area of global emissions as the power sector is rapidly decarbonising due to the retreat of coal use as renewables (mostly wind / solar) grow exponentially into electricity production.
Let’s accept that we wish car use to continue in the UK at current levels, and that consumption of car use will continue in roughly its current form: people buy cars from car manufacturers or dealers or privately and new or second-hand.
This may sound trite – but it is a simple way of saying we are asking for no personal sacrifice to reduce transport emissions. In fact, if we are to reduce emissions (quickly) we need to make the transition gain not pain: carrot not stick. Pick your phrase.
So – let’s assume UK passenger cars remain at 32 million on the road over the next few decades – a flat level that has been the case for many years now (as new cars are bought, older ones retire at about the same rate). It is a saturated market in economic terms.
Some commentators would argue we need to take cars off the streets more quickly, or reduce mileage via Low-Emission Zones: that is fine, but as we follow the logic below, we’ll see that is all upside.
We can in fact win this transport transition without any help from the first two elements of the Kaya Identity (less cars or sacrificial purchasing behaviour).
To do this – all we need to provide are good or better cars at a similar or better price that use equal or less energy and emit less CO2 per unit of energy.
How is this possible ?
Well - we win because we now have such a solution.
We don’t need to reduce cars, or offer inferior transport products.
We have 100% battery electric vehicles (BEVs) which are now mostly superior in performance to conventional cars (ICE cars), and also increasingly cheaper to buy and to run.
They also use far less energy, and don’t emit any tail-pipe CO2 at all – “zero emissions”.
We can summarise all this is a simple table below looking at the four elements of the Kaya equation and looking forward to a point where all cars have converted to BEVs (eg by c.a. 2040).
Summary:
Car numbers remain the same – no sacrifice
Car costs lower (sticker price and running costs are at least 25% less – see here)
Total energy used far lower – ICE cars 25% efficient, EVs 80%
Emissions into the streets – drop by over 90%, ultimately 100%
Taking each element in turn:
Car access and numbers remain the same – no sacrifice required
The cost to buy a car will be about 25% cheaper over the next few years - prices are already at parity in the larger and luxury segment, and within the next 2-3 years in the mid-size and small range - lower battery prices and mass deployment and learning curves will lead to lower and lower car prices
ICE cars are hugely inefficient – a majority - > 60% - their power is lost as heat and pollutant oxides – so the overall energy on a like for like basis will be far less when all cars are electric – current estimates are that BEVs would only need a fifth of the energy used by today’s car fleet
BEVs do not emit CO2 – ICE cars emit about half a pound of CO2 for every mile driven. BEVs emit none – they do not have a tailpipe.
This is how we solve the UK transport emissions problem, (and associated urban health problems), global emissions issues, increase wealth and reduce overall global energy efficiency – and with no personal sacrifice other than the move to better, cheaper, transport solutions – even if the number of cars built and driven remain the same.
New Automotive’s calculations suggest that by 2030, helped by the UK government bans, emissions from UK passenger car road transport will drop by 33%, and by 66% by 2035.
And we all save money, and improve our own health at the same time.
Sometimes a maths equation can help your life.
