Everyone, including me, talks about all the ignored, or simply not-yet-exploited opportunities for energy efficiency that surround us. Now we have a study that seemingly takes a rigorous look at the issue. (I say seemingly because I don’t have access to the $44/copy paper.)
Study Cites Substantial Efficiency Savings:
A new study from the National Research Council has found that energy efficiency measures in the United States could cut energy use by 30 percent below 2030 projections.
The report, which received funding from the Department of Energy as well as several private companies and foundations, argued that energy efficiency represents an enormous money-saving opportunity for the country. Measures to achieve it include fuel-economy standards, stricter building codes and efficiency requirements for home appliances.
“The full deployment of cost-effective, energy-efficient technologies in buildings alone could eliminate the need to add to U.S. electricity generation capacity,” the report stated.
…
In the near term — at least until 2020 — any efficiency gains will probably come from improvements to the internal combustion engine, the report states. Plug-in vehicles may be a “promising mid- to long-term option,” but they will be difficult to roll out quickly on a mass scale. As for the long term, the report says that it could take perhaps until 2050 for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to gain significant share.
…
The report also acknowledged the many potential barriers to energy efficiency initiatives. These include high initial costs, volatile energy prices, and a lack of information or incentives.
The report came out a day after President Obama — who hopes to create jobs in energy efficiency — called for new incentives for homeowners to weatherize their property. This initiative was promptly dubbed “cash for caulkers.”
OK, everyone who’s read this site for a long time and just flinched at the hydrogen fuel cell car line, expecting me fly off on a tangent, can unclench. I will simply say that I remain convinced that hydrogen fuel cells will either never be competitive with PHEVs and EVs, or it will take so long (well after 2050, as mentioned above) that they’re irrelevant.
As for savings overall, we have a lot of hurdles to get over, not least of which is simply that most mainstream voters and consumers in the US simply couldn’t be bothered with conserving. They don’t know how much money, energy, and CO2 they could save, or they’re sure (based on no information) that it’s “too much trouble”, or they think it’s “too good to be true”, and they don’t want to get suckered.
Which reminds me, I realized last night that I overlooked two more really obvious additions to my bright lines list of must-do personal conservation steps, both of which my wife and I employ diligently, yet somehow I managed to forget:
- Do you use cloth shopping bags for your trips to the grocery store? As the saying goes, the answer to “paper or plastic” is “neither”. You can buy these reusable bags from many stores for about $1 each, and they save energy and CO2 every time you use them.
- Do you use a water filter and reusable water bottles? The amount of oil and energy consumed, and CO2 emitted from the use of those ubiquitous clear plastic water bottles is an embarrassment. So just stop it, OK?
Prior bright lines installments:
