Which energy source has had the biggest impact on meeting America’s
energy needs over the past forty years? It’s not coal. It’s not oil. Not
wind or nuclear. Believe it or not, it’s even bigger than all of those
combined. Our greatest energy resource is energy efficiency—wasting
less, and making the most out of the energy we already have.
According to NRDC’s groundbreaking, comprehensive analysis
of key indicators, America’s energy position, in terms of security and
reliability, has never been stronger. That’s reassuring, and perhaps
surprising, in a time when bad energy news (turmoil in the Middle East,
fracking, oil spills) seems to dominate the headlines. For nearly 40
years, our economic growth has been rapidly outpacing our energy
consumption. Our businesses and industries are producing and selling
more stuff, and using less energy to do so. We used less energy last
year than we did in 1999—despite running an economy that’s 25 percent
bigger.
How have we accomplished this growth without an accompanying boom in energy demand, and a drastic uptick in carbon pollution?
In a word, efficiency. Our
home appliances and electronics have been meeting increasingly tough
federal efficiency standards. Thanks to standards like these (which NRDC
has been helping push through for decades), electricity consumption
from 2000 onward has been growing slower than the population.
Remarkable, when you consider not only how many more people are using
electricity, but how many more gadgets we have at home now that we did
at the turn of the century, how many more chargers are plugged into
every wall socket.
Refrigerators are bigger and fancier than ever,
yet they use about one-quarter the energy they did 40 years ago, while
the cost of owning and operating a fridge has fallen about 70 percent.
We’re
using less oil now we did in 1973, when the economy was one-third its
present size. We’re going farther than ever on each gallon of gas,
thanks to federal fuel efficiency standards. The latest set of standards
are expected to cut oil use 2.1 million barrels by 2025. That’s more
oil than we import from any OPEC country.
Thanks to efficiency,
we’re already on track to meet President Obama’s target of a 17 percent
reduction in carbon pollution by 2020. That’s progress, but scientists
agree we need to do more in order to stabilize the climate. We can get
there if we really put efficiency to work—and studies show we have
plenty of opportunity to do so.
President Obama made efficiency a
cornerstone of his climate plan because he knows it works. The next big
opportunity for energy efficiency is our homes and buildings, which are
responsible for about one-third of U.S. global warming emissions.
Tightening building energy codes and upgrading our homes and buildings
with better insulation, energy-efficient equipment and appliances will
reduce energy waste, save money for owners and tenants, and bring down
carbon pollution. A new model building energy code,
jointly proposed by NRDC and several leading homebuilders, could cut
home energy use up to 20 percent, and, by 2030, reduce as much carbon
pollution as 158 power plants produce in a year.
Federal and state
governments can move things along faster by continuing to update
efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings and appliances. But
ironically, most utilities are penalized when they help their customers
become more efficient, because electricity rates are set with a target
revenue in mind. If customers use less electricity, utilities’ revenues
fall short. Regulators can fix this disincentive
by allowing for small yearly rate adjustments to correct for changes in
sales, ensuring that utilities and customers who do the right thing
aren’t penalized. Half the states have measures like this in place for
some utilities, but progress has been slow. And only two publicly owned
utilities, in Los Angeles and Glendale, have made the change.
When
we get more efficient, good things happen. Our existing efficiency
efforts are already saving Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a
year, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and reducing carbon
pollution, all while costing far less than developing new sources of
energy.
In contrast, continuing to burn coal and oil in our power plants and gas tanks costs us more than $100 billion
each year in premature death and illness, hospital bills, work days
lost, and other health costs. That figure doesn’t include the billions
of dollars in damage from extreme weather, which is fueled by carbon pollution (and cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion
in 2012), the national security costs of our oil addiction, and the
harm done to ecosystems from power plant and vehicle pollution.
When
it comes to energy, it makes sense to focus on what works. Energy
efficiency should be our priority, not another checkbox on the list.
It’s the cleanest, most cost-effective, most productive energy resource
we have, and we need to use more of it.
http://theenergycollective.com/peterlehner/286191/amazingly-good-energy-news-us-energy-more-secure-and-reliable-ever-thanks-efficie
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