I wrote about Energy Efficiency for Fun and Profit back in February. Energy efficiency is where you get the most bang for the buck in reducing GHG. In fact, you save money with efficiency. Dow Chemical, for instance, reduced its energy intensity by 38 per cent between 1990 to 2005. They spent $1 billion and realized $5 billion of savings. The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report says that "Studies suggest that mitigation opportunities with net negative costs have the potential to reduce emissions by around 6 GtCO2-eq/yr in 2030." "Net negative costs" = money in your pocket. Here's a graphic from Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company, that illustrates this potential beautifully.
Now a study from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) shows how much energy we've been saving in the U.S. since the 1970's. The report, The Size of the U.S. Energy Efficiency Market: Generating a More Complete Picture, says "Since 1970, energy efficiency has met about three-fourths of the demand for new energy-related services while conventional energy supply has covered only one-fourth of this demand." There is much more to accomplish, says the report. See also this story from GreenBiz. This overlooked and underappreciated sector of the U.S. economy has generated over a million jobs, according to the report, two-thirds of them in buildings and construction. (See any number of posts here on Green Building.)
"The Economist" wrote about this too recently: The elusive negawatt, asking the pregnant question, "If energy conservation both saves money and is good for the planet, why don't people do more of it?" It appears, according to the ACEEE and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that many do. See this chart.
"In wonkish circles," the article notes, "energy efficiency used to be known as "the fifth fuel.'" I think that's perfectly apt. The article references a recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute on The Case For Investing In Energy Productivity. It maintains that " annual investments in energy productivity of $170 billion through 2020 could cut global energy demand growth by at least half" and "would generate energy savings ramping up to $900 billion annually by 2020." And substantially cut GHG emissions.
See also "The Negawatt Revolution" from Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute's "Approach to Energy."
I can't exhort us here to "get on it" as I sometimes like to do, because, according to what we're seeing, we're already "on it." Let's certainly, by all means then, Stay On It!
