Michael Grunwald in TIME on "America's Untapped Energy Resource: Boosting Efficiency":
This may sound too good to be true, but the U.S. has a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available.
This miracle juice goes by the distinctly boring name of energy efficiency, and it's often ignored in the hubbub over alternative fuels, the nuclear renaissance, T. Boone Pickens and the green-tech economy.
(Via Gristmill.)
Mark Jacobson provides an excellent overview and ranking of carbon-reducing energy technologies from solar to nuclear by their potential to positively affect the climate and air quality, their land-use impact, and their ability to supply sufficient energy to meet global demand. There is also an online presentation available with some useful graphics which summarizes the results.
Here is the take-home point for those who don't wish to read the whole article:
In summary, the use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, solar, wave, and hydroelectric to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs result in the most benefit and least impact among the options considered. Coal-CCS and nuclear provide less benefit with greater negative impacts. The biofuel options provide no certain benefit and result in significant negative impacts. Because sufficient clean natural resources (e.g., wind, sunlight, hot water, ocean energy, gravitational energy) exists to power all energy for the world, the results here suggest that the diversion of attention to the less efficient or non-efficient options represents an opportunity cost that delays solutions to climate and air pollution health problems.
and here are a few choice quotes:
Globally, about 1700 TW (14900 PWh per year) of solar power are theoretically available over land for PVs ... the capture of even 1% of this power would supply more than the world's power needs.
[W]ind resources off the shallow Atlantic coast could supply a significant portion of US electric power on its own.
Converting to corn-E85 could cause either no change in or increase CO2 emissions by up to 9.1% ... Converting to cellulosic-E85 could change CO2 emissions by +4.9 to −4.9% relative to gasoline.
[I]nvestment in an energy technology with a long time between planning and operation increases carbon dioxide and air pollutant emissions relative to a technology with a short time between planning and operation ... the delay permits the longer operation of higher-carbon emitting existing power generation, such as natural gas peaker plants or coal-fired power plants
(Via Gristmill.)
Yikes! I hadn't been aware of this ugly aspect of coal-powered generation which has lead to the devastation of a large area in Tennessee:
United States coal plants produce 129 million tons of postcombustion byproducts a year, the second-largest waste stream in the country, after municipal solid waste. That is enough to fill more than a million railroad coal cars, according to the National Research Council.
Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems.
The wonderful Passivhaus design gets a write-up in the New York Times:
The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants' bodies.
And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.
"The myth before was that to be warm you had to have heating. Our goal is to create a warm house without energy demand," said Wolfgang Hasper, an engineer at the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt. "This is not about wearing thick pullovers, turning the thermostat down and putting up with drafts. It's about being comfortable with less energy input, and we do this by recycling heating."
Interesting post from the Gristmill on various strategies for financing high-efficiency retrofits of buildings with a long-term payback that might otherwise discourage short-term tenants. Manitoba Hydro is highlighted for its success in making 8,100 loans for energy conservation programs in 2007.
The lesson of Sacramento and Manitoba lies in that how payments are collected -- on the bill, on the property tax, or on a separate bill (which is what these programs do) -- matters less than how the loans are marketed. Because of humans' innate aversion to making complicated choices, among the most important ingredients of success in Manitoba and Sacramento is the deep and thoroughgoing involvement of those places' contractors -- the people that building owners already trust to help them improve their properties. In both places, contractors are the most important sales force and intermediary for the utility lending programs. Plus, these programs are efficient, well staffed and well organized. In Sacramento, once a contractor and building owner have submitted a loan application, the utility approves or declines within 24 hours. Manitoba is almost as fast, and it has a colossal network of engaged tradespeople: 1,100 contractors and 200 retailers are enrolled in its program. Manitoba has essentially deputized its building tradespeople as loan officers and conservation evangelists ... It's a whole-systems approach that provides financing as one part of the package.
Very encouraging. Steven Chu, the next Secretary of Energy in the US, on energy efficiency in the New Yorker:
"the manufacturers had to assign the job to the engineers, instead of to the lobbyists." ... the size of the average American refrigerator has increased by more than ten per cent, while the price, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has been cut in half. Meanwhile, energy use has dropped by two-thirds.
The transition to more efficient fridges, Chu pointed out, has saved the equivalent of all the energy generated in the United States by wind turbines and solar cells. "I cannot impress upon you how important energy efficiency is," he said.
Great post from Andrew Revkin in the New York Times Dot Earth blog today in which he argues for a major boost in R&D spending on green technology:
I'm not quite sure I've heard any leader yet describe the sustained, aggressive "energy quest" that'd be required to lead the world toward a future with non-polluting energy choices sufficient to empower more or less 9 billion people -- and how that quest would have to extend from the living room to the boardroom, from the laboratory to the classroom, to be transformational ...
Will the push for a green economy include a boost for those priming the innovation pump?
In this fascinating and moving speech1 William McDonough, the author of "Cradle to Cradle", condemns our "de facto plan" in which we measure
prosperity by how much of your natural capital you can cut down, dig up, bury, burn or otherwise destroy, … productivity by how few people are working, progress by your number of smokestacks,
and offers us this new design assignment:
How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
He challenges us to reach for a triple top line of environment, equity and economy, and to reinvent our industrial systems with "Cradle to Cradle" design in which waste from one process becomes food for another and in which the production and use of toxic chemicals is anathema.
William McDonough has been hailed as a visionary, and in 1996 was the recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development. As is often the case, it may be that the man behind the ideas is not entirely who he seems to be. I don't think this should detract from the power of the ideas2; it may diminish the power of the messenger.
These five videos show Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, giving a lecture series on Advanced Energy Efficiency as the MAP/Ming Visiting Professor at Stanford University in 2007. The lectures are delivered in typical Amory style, peppered with numeric detail, filled with inspiring examples of green design, and bursting with information. I highly recommend watching all five if you have time. Higher quality versions are also available on iTunes.