The Power Of Many Small Actions

**personal post**

#powerofmanysmallactions

Like many of you I have been wondering what I can do to assist with the situation in the Ukraine beyond the obvious such as donating money, supporting aid deliveries, offering shelter etc. All of which are very worthwhile causes but do nothing to bring the conflict to an end.

You are probably aware that one small action made by many people can make a dramatic difference but what action?

On St Patrick's day, March 17th (or earlier) I want to ask you all to take a small action that will reduce Europe's reliance on oil and gas, reduce the import of oil, takes 30 seconds to do and will actually save you money and reduce green house gas emissions at the same time.?

If everyone in Europe does takes this action it can save a collective potential €20.7 billion euro per annum spent on buying oil and gas each year, year on year with much of that oil and gas coming from repressive and aggressive regimes and all of it damaging to the climate and your pockets.

What is it??On March 17th, please turn down the heating in your house by 1 degree centigrade and keep it one degree lower than it is now.?That is it, that is all you have to do.?I doubt you will even notice the difference.

Please join me in making that change. Share this post, put it on your social media accounts and let's see what we can achieve through #powerofmanysmallactions.

It is such a small thing but, multiplied by a lot of people it has a staggering potential!

Thank-you

Peter

?

For those interested, the supporting calculations are below?with references as to the data sources.?I am not a climate scientist or statistician.?I have rounded some figures and fully accept that they are based on some assumptions and probably some errors! But the important thing is that they do illustrate the potential of #powerofmanysmallactions.?I am not really interested in debating their accuracy, they are illustrative and perhaps idealistic but, does it really matter if the potential is 20 billion Euro, 25 billion or 15 billion??What matters is the action.

?A change from 19 degrees centigrade to 18 degrees = 13% saving on space heating.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/128720/6923-how-much-energy-could-be-saved-by-making-small-cha.pdf

Space heating is 61% of residential energy use.

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/residential/

So, 1 degree of change can save 13% of 61% (8%) of a all residential energy.

Residential = 28% of all energy used in Ireland

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/residential/ (Final Energy by end-use) chart.

So, we can save 8% of 28% of all energy used = 2.24% of all energy used in Ireland.

Irish consumption of Gas is 34% of all energy used in Ireland and Oil is 44%

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/energy-use-overview/ (Annual Energy Flow).

So 1 degree of change saves 2.24% of (34%+44%) = 1.74% of all Oil and Gas consumed by Ireland (biggest consumer is in fact transport, not residential use).

1.74% of all oil and gas annually is 10,574 ktoe (thousand tonnes of oil equivalent) which is 10,574,000 tonnes of oil equivalent) each year x 1.74% = 183,987, say 184,000 tonnes.?

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/energy-use-overview/ (Downloaded the data from the report and used Excel to work out the percentages and ktoe totals).

Brent Crude today circa $827USD per tonne that is circa €750 per tonne (as of 10th March 2022).

https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?op=1

So the potential to save in Ireland alone €750 x 184,000 tonnes of oil equiv = €138 million per annum

?Now expand to Europe…

Assuming these figures are representative of Europe as a whole we multiply by European population.

Population of Europe according to the UN is 748.4 million

Population of Irish Republic - 5m

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ireland-population/

So multiply the potential benefits by 748.4 and divide by 5 gives the European figure of €20,655,840,000 (20.7 billion euro per annum)

43% of all gas used in Europe is Russian

https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/11/europe-s-energy-crisis-five-charts-to-explain-why-your-bills-might-go-up-this-winter