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356 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Coal Oil
20.2% 29.2 3.3% 7.0

1985 2003 1985 2003

Natural gas Hydro
0.8% 1.4 4.2% 10.5

1985 2003 1985 2003

FIGURE 18.2 Percentage of various world energy sources used by the People’s Republic of
China.

Specific suggestions follow, first by commercial technology, next by some
of the potential barriers to successful implementation, and then by the policies
and financial mechanisms that might best encourage and implement those
technologies.

Commercial Technological Approaches Available Today (2006)
and Areas for Collaboration With Research and Development
and Universities for the Future
1.Expand renewable energy generation such as wind and solar use.
a. Provide the infrastructure to integrate these seamlessly with the grid
b. Use these resources especially where they can be colocated with local
loads, and ideally as “hybrid systems”
c. Investigate and utilize appropriate energy storage technologies where
appropriate [e.g., compressed air storage, superconducting magnetic
energy storage, high-tech electromechanical batteries, or conversion
into another energy carriers such as hydrogen (by electrolysis)]. If
sufficient energy is converted to hydrogen, develop new local energy
centers for distribution
d. Take the following steps toward establishing “agile energy systems”
(see the Glossary of Terms (Clark, 2017) and the following points for
definition and further discussion)
i. Establish and implement Energy Infrastructure Plans based on the
Agile Systems Model for 5e10 years.
ii. Learn from the environmental and energy mistakes in other nation
states such that future technological advances can be incorporated