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Other Uses of Fossil Fuels: The Substitution Challenge Continues

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Our Renewable Future
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Abstract

THIS CHAPTER EXPLORES three broad categories of energy use. The first considers ways in which energy becomes embodied in infrastructure and manufactured products (primarily through the use of high levels of heat). The second has to do with the creation of lower-temperature heat for heating buildings and domestic hot water. The third has to do with the use of fossil fuels as feedstocks for chemicals and plastics. As we will see, the second of these three (heat for buildings) is probably the easiest to address with efficiency measures and renewable energy, while the first (high-temperature heat for industrial processes) poses possibly the highest substitution hurdle of all for 100 percent renewable energy systems.

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Heinberg, R., Fridley, D. (2016). Other Uses of Fossil Fuels: The Substitution Challenge Continues. In: Our Renewable Future. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-780-3_6

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