[Graeme]

Energy Efficiency could create jobs, cut air pollution on Driving the Nation

The U.S. could create more than 600,000 skilled jobs, cut air pollution and fight climate change while its citizens reap 17 billion dollars in energy savings by doing one simple thing: Boost energy efficiency.

Employing existing energy-savings technology could reduce electricity demand by 25 percent. That’s like shutting down 494 power plants by 2030, according to a new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Programmes aimed at helping customers save energy cost utilities only about three cents per kilowatt hour, while generating the same amount of electricity from burning coal or natural gas can cost two to three times more.

“Americans’ energy bills will be lower and that will boost local economic growth,” said the study’s lead author, Sara Hayes.

“The CO2 emissions reduction would be massive – 600 million tonnes a year by 2030,” Hayes told IPS.

That’s nearly as much as Canada’s annual emissions, which are among the highest in the world.

“We were very conservative in our study. The benefits could be far greater,” she said.

drivingthenation

[Graeme]

High-Efficiency Planet

Today, rising energy consumption applies more to poor rapidly developing countries than to Europe and the United States, where there is much unmet demand for lighting, power, and heat.

“Up until 1950, in the United Kingdom, if you increased incomes by 10 percent you would increase the consumption of lighting by more than 40 percent, and increase passenger transport by 30 percent,” Fouquet explained. “Those are phenomenal numbers. If we translate these to China and India today, these would be huge increases.”

With every energy transition, whether from wood and dung to coal and oil to natural gas, or from animal fats to kerosene, humans have used much larger, not smaller, quantities of energy.

“With each energy transition, energy consumption globally does not drop,” said Fouquet. “It wouldn’t follow historical patterns to see a drop in global energy consumption in a future low-carbon energy transition.”

Later in his talk, Fouquet said he thought energy consumption would eventually peak and decline.

“I want to emphasize that there is a peak and there is a decline; and at some point, we move toward substantially lower income elasticities,” he said. “This feeds in a lot with what Jesse Ausubel says, that there are peaks in increases of consumption and there are declines.”

However, higher levels of energy consumption should be expected from developing countries, just as there were greater increases in energy consumption in the past in the United States and Europe.

“The peaks of income and price elasticities are around $3,000 to $6,000,” Fouquet explained. “Hopefully afterward, things will drop down and there will be element of decoupling of energy services from energy and GDP.”

theenergycollective

[Graeme]

Energy Efficiency News Buffet

As noted in an article yesterday, I’ve been very busy in the past month (well, months…) moving into a new home and following the birth of a sweet little cleantech lover. Inevitably, “roundup articles” of important or interesting cleantech news we didn’t cover dropped off as a result. With a big backlog of stories I wanted to share, I’m breaking them up into even more articles than normal. Here’s one on energy efficiency news.

Your refrigerator is one of the biggest electricity hogs in your house. But you can make it much more efficient by cleaning its condenser coils. Here’s how to do that. (Green Living Ideas)

Install a water-efficient shower head! Not sure how? Read this piece from Peter Young. (Green Living Ideas)

Want to take it a step further and install a shower flow valve adapter? Peter has another article for you. (Green Living Ideas)

If you’re new to one of the best energy-efficient products on the market — energy-efficient light bulbs — Lindsay Wilson has a video for you on how to go about making the switch in an intelligent, informed way. (Shrink That Footprint)

cleantechnica