The contemporary American energy economy was built in an era of cheap fossil fuels. It is terribly inefficient, but this is, in a way, good news. It means we can make it more efficient and save lots of energy, environmental impact and money. Basically, there is lots of low hanging fruit to be harvested.
Efficiency is a completely painless form of conservation. Conservation also includes changing lifestyles, simplifying, curtailing consumption and tasks performed, as well as getting more efficient.
Efficiency just means using less energy per function by employing better technology. Efficiency improvements are technical fixes. Better insulation, more efficient appliances, better lights, cars that get more miles per gallon, are all common examples of ways we can do better using technology that saves both money and environmental impact.
One of the seminal thinkers on energy issues in the world today is Amory Lovins co-founder and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Lovins is the author or co-author of many books, including Natural Capitalism, and has served as a consultant to dozens of Fortune 500 companies. In a 2005 paper Lovins wrote:
“Increasing energy end-use efficiency—technologically providing more desired service per unit of delivered energy consumed—is generally the largest, least expensive, most benign, most quickly deployable, least visible, least understood, and most neglected way to provide energy services.”
He went on to point out that the energy-intensiveness of the U.S. economy decreased by 46 percent during the period 1975-2005. This means that it takes just a tad more than half us much energy now as it did then to produce the same amount of goods and services.
Lovins and many other researchers document profitable investments in virtually all areas of our economy, showing how we can use far less energy to perform the same tasks—in transportation, manufacturing, space heating and cooling, home appliances, etc. Lovins introduces us to the concept of “negawatts” electrical watts saved, rather than produced. These cost today a small fraction of the price of electricity: roughly 1-3 cents per kilowatt hour saved.
According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) “energy efficiency and demand response are the lowest-cost resources available to meet this growing demand and the quickest to deploy for near-term impacts” indicating a huge economic opportunity. And conservative Department of Energy (DOE) studies show that 80% of projected growth in electric demand could be offset by efficiency improvements alone.
Others project far greater savings as possible. One group that has done an excellent job of putting together a plan for putting our country on the path to a sustainable energy future is Google’s Energy Team, authors of Google’s Clean Energy 2030 Plan. They depart from the assumption that energy use, and in particular electricity consumption, must rise with increasing population and more functions performed. They note:
“For energy efficiency, there is ample proof in several states and from research studies that growth in electricity demand can be kept flat or even made to decline (nationally demand is otherwise projected to grow by about 1% per year). This can be done using a combination of strategies, including energy efficiency targets, appliance standards, building codes, research & development investment, financial incentives, ‘decoupling’ of utility profits from sales, and voluntary programs.”
Instead of seeing electric demand rising 25 percent between now and 2030, if appropriate actions are taken, they see it as remaining flat.
Example: Cutting Energy Waste in Buildings
One area where efficiency improvements can really come into play is in buildings. Buildings use energy to heat, to cool to light, to run appliances, etc. And it is almost all being done extremely inefficiently. Architects, however, are now taking the lead in pursuing energy efficiency. Groups like the American Institute of Architects, the U.S. Green Building Council and Architecture 2030 are all speaking out. We are seeing more and more Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System buildings go up all around the country.
Data from the US Energy Information Administration illustrates that buildings are responsible for almost half (48 percent) of all energy consumption and GHG emissions annually; globally the percentage is even greater. Seventy-six percent of all power plant-generated electricity is used just to operate buildings. Clearly, immediate action in the Building Sector is essential if we are to avoid hazardous climate change.
As Architecture 2030 notes:
“Buildings are the major source of demand for energy and materials that produce by-product greenhouse gases (GHG). Slowing the growth rate of GHG emissions and then reversing it over the next ten years is the key to keeping global warming under one degree centigrade (°C) above today’s level. It will require immediate action and a concerted global effort.”
To accomplish this, Architecture 2030 has issued The 2030 Challenge asking the global architecture and building community to achieve a fossil fuel reduction for new buildings or major renovations of 60 percent in 2010, 80 percent in 2020 and going carbon-neutral by 2030 (using no fossil fuel GHG emitting energy to operate).
The Bottom Line:
It is faster and cheaper to save energy than to produce it. If we follow a least-cost strategy we will invest first in the abundant opportunities to get more efficient. This will reduce CO2 emissions most rapidly, something that must be seen as our highest immediate priority.
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