[分享]Curbing the growth of global energy demand
<p>以下文章摘自麦肯锡季刊</p><p>Curbing the growth of global energy demand<br/>The opportunities for improvement are huge, but market forces alone won’t realize them.</p><p>The options available to mitigate the world’s energy problems<br/>disconcert policy makers and executives alike. Securing new supplies<br/>of fossil fuels is difficult and often presents geopolitical risks; new<br/>technologies associated with alternative sources of energy, although<br/>attractive, involve significant levels of uncertainty and could have<br/>unintended consequences.1 Meanwhile, the prospect of reducing<br/>energy demand evokes fears that the consumer’s convenience and<br/>comfort would be compromised—an unattractive proposition<br/>anywhere and an unacceptable one in the developing world, where<br/>globalization and rapid economic growth, fueled by increased energy<br/>consumption, are improving the prospects of hundreds of millions of<br/>people.<br/>Yet McKinsey research shows that the growth of worldwide energy<br/>demand can be cut in half or more over the next 15 years, without<br/>reducing the benefits that energy’s end users enjoy—and while<br/>supporting economic growth. The key is a concerted global effort to<br/>boost energy productivity (the amount of output achieved from each<br/>unit of energy consumed).2 (A joint research project conducted by the<br/>McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and McKinsey’s global energy and<br/>materials practice. For the full report underlying this article, see<br/>Curbing Global Energy Demand Growth: The Energy Productivity<br/>Opportunity, May 2007, available free of charge online.)<br/>The exhibits that follow examine these opportunities by focusing on four sectors that represent<br/>98 percent of end-use demand for energy around the world. Capturing the full range of these<br/>opportunities would improve global energy productivity by 135 quadrillion British thermal units<br/>(QBTUs), saving the equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil a day—almost 150 percent of the<br/>energy the United States consumes now. What’s more, an intensive focus on improving energy<br/>productivity would spur new markets for demand-side innovation and thus generate important<br/>business opportunities for manufacturers, utilities, and other companies.<br/>Yet market forces alone will not produce such outcomes. The obstacles that thwart improvements<br/>in energy productivity include information gaps, market-distorting subsidies, an inadequate<br/>financing infrastructure, and misaligned incentives. To overcome such barriers, policy makers<br/>must terminate distorted policies, make the price and use of energy more transparent, create<br/>new market-clearing and financing mechanisms, and selectively implement demand-side energy<br/>policies (such as new building codes and appliance standards) while also encouraging demandside<br/>innovation by companies. Although these actions will be difficult politically, the rewards<br/>would be profound. Capturing the opportunities we have identified would not only cut the growth<br/>of energy demand dramatically but also be among the most economically attractive ways to<br/>reduce greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
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