Review Study of Energy Efficiency Measures in Favor of Reducing Carbon Footprint of Electricity and Power, Buildings, and Transportation

Abstract

Circular economy aspires to achieve environmental quality by minimizing resource input and waste, emissions, and energy leakage by which the environmental impact of any of these activities is equivalent to its carbon footprint production. To combat climate change, an immediate task that depends on the promise of a single alternative would be extremely dangerous. Instead, a variety of options are needed, including changing the composition of demand (using less energy), structural changes in the composition of the economy (dirty vs cleaner sectors and products, and different input mixes in production), low-carbon transportation, more energy-efficient technologies, and low-carbon (particularly renewable) energy sources. This study aims to address means of promoting energy efficiency implemented within socio-economic sectors: electricity and power, buildings, and logistics and transportation along with their carbon footprint impact. Starting from illustrating the notion of carbon footprint and ways of estimation, strategies for lowering carbon footprint are discussed. Moreover, this paper demonstrates three case studies of energy efficiency and reduction of carbon footprint. The first highlighted the effectiveness of employing geothermal renewable resources via analyzing the system to determine which of the cooling tower or shallow aquifer cooling is more efficient, to be implemented in the system. The second case examined and optimized a cogeneration system to achieve the optimum configuration as well as maximum energy efficiency. The third study investigated an option to decarbonize heavy-duty transport via fuel cell electric vehicles in Switzerland. Last but not least, to enhance economic development by enhancing energy efficiency and low-carbon approaches, carbon pricing should be on the top of climate policy makers’ objectives to promote and implement.