The use of cheap electricity in the development of the U.S. economy is a critical part of what has helped create the American dream. We should not underestimate the importance of the use of energy to the American economy and on the American innovation and way of life. This is not an endorsement to waste. It is a warning against Malthusian approaches. Changing our way of life can have many unforeseen consequences.
However, we are now encountering a few unexpected side effects that need management:
- Our energy use is wasteful to the point that it is now a drag on our economy.
- The GHG emissions and their effect on global warming cannot be ignored.
- The price of energy is rising.
It is time to rationalize our energy consumption. Our goal is to use conservation and efficiency to maintain electrical production at 2010 level, while increasing use (like electrical cars) and providing for the population increase. Rationalize is the key word.
We need to improve electrical energy efficiency and we need to use technology and investment to do it. As long as we stick to this guideline, our energy efficiency efforts will increase our competitiveness and will allow the American dream to continue to flourish. For example: we do not need to drive in dark streets – we need to light the streets with more efficient technology.
Below are a few recommendations:
- National implementation of energy efficiency measures that worked in states like California where electricity use per capita is 50% of the U.S. average. We have enough data on which policies work and which ones don’t. We just need to implement them across the nation. If it works, why invent it again? Decoupling, housing codes, appliance standards, etc. work very effectively.
- A federal program to lower the price of LED lighting and increase its use dramatically. It may require laws that will curtail the monopoly play in the sector and will ease the patent law implementation of LED. LED lighting is the most energy efficient (by thousands of %). It’s the initial cost of a lamp that delays its implementation (and the resistance from various stakeholders).
- Eliminate the “Replace to fluorescent” laws and public funding – it is the wrong direction. The technology is extremely problematic and limited. It will create a black market for incandescent lamps since most people will not want to use it. The environmental damage from mercury could poison our drinking water. The right direction is LED. Fluorescent is the preferred direction for manufacturers because the lamp burns much quicker than LED. It is extremely problematic for certain diseases like epilepsy.
- We convert significant amounts of alternate current to direct current at the point of use such as light bulb, PCs, electronics, etc. It is expensive to produce and is wasteful. We need:
- Technology developments that will change the home and business electrical systems to fit the rising use of direct current without wasting energy. We need it for new houses and for old ones (where it is impossible to change the house wiring). For example, wiring most of the house for direct current converted at the house entry point and have AC power only in selected points (e.g., the refrigerator)
- Federal and state standards based on the new technology for new houses and offices and for old ones. An enforcement mechanism to speed up the transition.
- Standards for “standby consumption” by electronic equipment. We need a nationwide minimum standard and implementation schedule for various appliances (like TV, PCs, etc.)
- New technology and national standards for supplying and selling electricity back to the grid by the users (e.g., by roof-top solar panels). This will encourage the development of distributed generation and storage technology and will allow the use of car batteries to support the grid in case of power shortages.
Conservation and efficiency are two very different concepts that are often confused or used interchangeably. Energy efficiency is the ability to do more with less, or productivity without waste. An example of energy efficiency is a CFL. When you use a CFL instead of an incandescent bulb, you receive the same service but use less electricity. Conservation is doing less, with less, and is often behavioral change. An example of conservation is turning down your thermostat in the winter and wearing a sweater to stay warm.
In this article, the terms are used interchangeably, which is inaccurate. Most of this document discusses the benefits of efficiency.
As a new user, I would like to second this comment before posting any others. While efficiency and conservation are often complementary, they are not synonymous. If I were to restructure this section, I would have two separate sections for electric efficiency – where subjects related to efficiency and conservation can be discussed – and demand response – where particiapants can discuss pricing innovation and related technologies that encourage more intelligent use of electricity.
Photovoltaics (i.e. rooftop solar panels), and most distributed renewable energy generation are supply side technologies, not energy efficiency. While this is an important policy, it may be a more appropriate suggestion for another category (such as renewable energy or distributed generation).
There are several references to “energy” on this page, but the title focuses on electricity. Energy is a much broader term than electricity, as it includes gasoline, natural gas, diesel and fuel oil combustion. These terms should not be used interchangeably because the conservation and efficiency solutions for electricity are not the same as those for energy.
Keeping total electricity consumption constant with increasing demand from electric vehicles is a laudable and achievable goal. Recently, Rocky Mountain Institute conducted analysis on national electric productivity (measured in $GDP/kWh) and found that there is a huge electric productivity gap. If all states were able to achieve the electric productivity of the top ten states, the nation would save at least 1.2 million gigawatt-hours annually. This is the equivalent of approximately 30 percent of the United States’ annual electricity consumption, more than enough savings to flatten load growth.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has put 3.2 billion dollars into grants for energy efficiency and conservation in block grants.
Additionally state and local energy investments are receiving $6.3 billion, and research is getting a boost of $2.5 billion.
Not too sure if this is the place for this, but as there isn’t a section specifically related to housing efficiency this seems like a good place.
Immense gains can be made in electrical efficiency through the improving and modernizing of houses in the U.S.
The ARRA 2009 has understood this and demonstrated the commitment by allocating $5 billion to weatherizing modest income homes, $4.5 billion to Federal building efficiency and $250 million to increasing energy efficiency in low income homes.
In a 2008 issue of Environment Magazine, Gerald T. Gardner and Paul C. Stern published “The Short List: The Most Effective Actions U.S. Households Can Take to Curb Climate Change”. According to that article, U.S. households can reduce energy usage by nearly 30% – which would result in an approximately 11% decrease in total U.S. energy consumption – “[by] changing their selection and use of household and motor vehicle technologies, without waiting for new technologies to appear, making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense of well-being…” The article identifies 17 household efficiency actions – ranging from purchasing a more fuel-efficient automobile to equipping low-rolling resistance tires, from replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs to adding/upgrading insulation – that together yield an average household approximately 30% in energy consumption savings. The Gardner-Stern article: http://www.scribd.com/doc/10235816/Gardner-Stern
Drawing from the actions identified in Gardner and Stern’s article, “Public Perceptions of Energy Consumption and Savings” – a study by Shahzeen Attari, Michael DeKay, Cliff Davidson, and Wändi Bruine de Bruin published in The Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences – evaluates public understanding of energy use and savings. Attari, et al. study:
http://ourenergypolicy.org/docs/14/Public_Perceptions_of_Energy_Consumption_and_Savings.pdf
The study’s summary: “In a national online survey, 505 participants reported their perceptions of energy consumption and savings for a variety of household, transportation, and recycling activities. When asked for the most effective strategy they could implement to conserve energy, most participants mentioned curtailment (e.g., turning off lights, driving less) rather than efficiency improvements (e.g., installing more efficient light bulbs and appliances), in contrast to experts’ recommendations. For a sample of 15 activities, participants underestimated energy use and savings by a factor of 2.8 on average, with small overestimates for low-energy activities and large underestimates for high-energy activities. Additional estimation and ranking tasks also yielded relatively flat functions for perceived energy use and savings. Across several tasks, participants with higher numeracy scores and stronger proenvironmental attitudes had more accurate perceptions. The serious deficiencies highlighted by these results suggest that well-designed efforts to improve the public’s understanding of energy use and savings could pay large dividends.”
I read the study’s findings with nterest. When I was in grad school a pretty cool sociologist did a bunch of human perception studies that blew my mind. He held up pictures of wildlife and asked how much each weighed. Most people guessed 100 pounds for a bobcat (the reality is closer to 30 pounds), 150 pounds for a coyote (closer to 40 pounds), 800 pounds for black bears (closer to 400 or 500 lbs). I think the implication was that people were responding with weights that correlated to their degree of fear.
I am pretty jaded on energy conservation through education and/or behavioral adjustment. Energy is far too complicated for most Americans. Moreover, the capital markets, financial system, and the convenient way we price externalities in this country are so messed up we can’t really force efficiency through markets until everything is fairly priced, at least, including pollution in all its flavors.
I think efficiency improvements should just show up in any and all buildings. We already have door-to-door energy companies (electric, gas, oil). Make it a crime to sell energy to poorly-performing buildings. Back in the day, we proposed electric utilities showing up at your house and just insulating, weatherstripping, swapping out shoddy appliances, and putting a few PV panels on the roof. Done. Payment? It’s in the rate base. And why couldn’t we do that today? The politics of the 150 lbs. coyote?
GREED or high profit will accomplish this objective.
The company I founded manufactures LED Illumination for the temp Lighting of Constructi9n Sites At the current $0.20 / KWH in NYC we are beginning to win jobs. We don’t need Fed programs. In 2013 the efficiency of the LED will be 200 lumen per Watt. Buildings more than 10 years old use T12 4′ fluorescent lamps with three to four per 2′ x 4′ fixture and 2 fixtures per 10′ square cubicle for a 400W load per 100 sf. It then takes another 150 W to 200 W to remove that waste heat or 5.5 W per SF.
There are over 10 billion sf of office space over 10 years old using T12 fluorescent. This10 billion sf presemnts a peak load of 55 GigaWatts or 50 1,100 megaWatt Nuclear reactors.200 Lumen / W LEDs in 2′ x 4′ Luminaires replacing the T12 fixtures could lower the current Peak demand by more than 60%. Assuming 50% use the 10 billion sf would consume 241 TeraWatt Hours with T12 the LED 200 lm/W would lower that to 96 TWH.
Lowering the annual building consumption by 1.75W/sf = 15 KWH / sf or 15 million KWH @ $0.20 / KWH in NYC is $3 million per million sf. In 2013 two $150 LED Luminairea (Fixtures) will replace the two T12 luminaires requiring $150 of LOcal #3 Laboror $6million / million sf with a two ywar payback. Tax incentives and abandonment of existing fixtures undepreciated asset value only accelerate the return.
GREED WINS and dose what legislation cannot.