Every time my night flight approaching any airports, glimpse of scattered lights always strikes me: How human spends millions and billions of joules to generate electricity. How millions and billions of carbon are produced from that energy mix.
Most of the time we took it for granted.
Every Megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity transmitted and distributed through the grid consumes about three times of primary energy in terms of energy unit. It produces greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) which is measured in CO2e (carbondioxide equivalent). The quantity of CO2e/MWh depends on the type of primary energy, be it coal, oil, gas or renewable energy sources, which is used to generate the electricity.
Energy mix of Java-Madura-Bali grid in Indonesia contributes to about 0.75-0.89 ton of CO2/MWh. in India, the national electricity grid has the emission factor of 0.81 ton of CO2/MWh, while is Pakistan is about 0.43 t of CO2/MWh. Difference lies in higher coal consumption of energy mix of power generation in Indonesia and India, while cleaner electricity, in terms of lesser carbon emissions, in Pakistan is due to their high consumption of natural gas. Vietnam has almost 52% of of their power generation by Hydro and it was estimated that their electricity emission factor is about 0.62 t of CO2/MWh. Laos produces 98% of their electricity by hydropower and this creates a low electricity emission factor for sure.
A lady who spends 20 minutes/day, 365 days/year, drying her hair with 1000 W hairdryer would generate about 91-108 kgs of CO2e/year in Jakarta from this activity, while she would only generate about 73 kgs of CO2e/year in Hanoi. Assuming the rule of thumb of 3:1 in converting primary energy to electricity, she consumes about 3600 kilojoules of primary energy.
Do your own math and you'll see how much emissions you have generated and how much energy you have consumed in your life!
Most of the time we took it for granted.
Every Megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity transmitted and distributed through the grid consumes about three times of primary energy in terms of energy unit. It produces greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) which is measured in CO2e (carbondioxide equivalent). The quantity of CO2e/MWh depends on the type of primary energy, be it coal, oil, gas or renewable energy sources, which is used to generate the electricity.
Energy mix of Java-Madura-Bali grid in Indonesia contributes to about 0.75-0.89 ton of CO2/MWh. in India, the national electricity grid has the emission factor of 0.81 ton of CO2/MWh, while is Pakistan is about 0.43 t of CO2/MWh. Difference lies in higher coal consumption of energy mix of power generation in Indonesia and India, while cleaner electricity, in terms of lesser carbon emissions, in Pakistan is due to their high consumption of natural gas. Vietnam has almost 52% of of their power generation by Hydro and it was estimated that their electricity emission factor is about 0.62 t of CO2/MWh. Laos produces 98% of their electricity by hydropower and this creates a low electricity emission factor for sure.
A lady who spends 20 minutes/day, 365 days/year, drying her hair with 1000 W hairdryer would generate about 91-108 kgs of CO2e/year in Jakarta from this activity, while she would only generate about 73 kgs of CO2e/year in Hanoi. Assuming the rule of thumb of 3:1 in converting primary energy to electricity, she consumes about 3600 kilojoules of primary energy.
Do your own math and you'll see how much emissions you have generated and how much energy you have consumed in your life!
