I must agree with the Climate Progress contention that energy efficiency has the potential to be widely adopted, have a substantial impact upon national energy security, and be relatively cheap to implement.
Does reuse get you to where you want to go?
Chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins, who is noted for applying the rubric: End Use — Least Cost — Most Sustainable, also has observed that “it is cheaper to save energy than to buy it.” Makes horse sense to me.
And, Lovins, who has been making his “negawatts” pitch for 35 years, is also an environmentalist. Efficiency is often a sound investment economically and environmentally. Where I would advise caution in accepting such a well-grounded policy recommendation, is how an emphasis upon efficiency could have potentially untoward consequences. Lovins also is an opponent of nuclear power, whereas the arguments set forth by the guest contributor would seem to make nuclear power a reasonable alternative… particularly if you are willing to buy the pitch(blend) that nuclear is cleaner.
If you dismiss a RPS (Renewable energy Portfolio Standards) or feed-in tariff, do you allow efficiency to trump sustainability? Ulf Bossel has given some thought to whether the term sustainability can be used in a meaningful way. The way he explains Sustainable Utility Scale Energy Supply is with a Heaven and Hell metaphor, i.e., we need to eschew fuels from underground and foster energy from above ground sources. Examples of energy from the good place are wind and solar. Uranium comes from the bad place, as do the fossils we American like to consume so.
The exception to the metaphor is geothermal, e,g,, the Basin and Range geologic province in Nevada, southeastern Oregon, southwestern Idaho, Arizona and western Utah where rapid development of geothermal power plants would seem especially promising.
According to Ulf Bossel, a manufacturing engineer and previous fuel cell advocate, the way to a sustainable energy future is with sources of renewable energy.
Please to tolerate naive musing. Could the losses from capital invested in hell fired power plants be offset by finding ways to move the steam turbines carefully to solar thermal and geothermal sites? Could improvements be made in efficiency of the systems as they are rebuilt? Could the sources for the reused power generation technology share in the gains from such green karma? And, does such a transfer mean “green” jobs?
Could “steam and mirrors” trump buggy whips and “real Corinthian leather?” I dunno, it may be too soon to tell. It does probably depend upon who is holding the carrots and where they are being held.
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Professor Joe (“He got dee whole world”) Romm avers that “nearly 40% of the U.S. emissions reduction potential by 2030 is from energy efficiency.” He references a comprehensive and credible analysis on energy efficiency potential and carbon mitigation cost curves from MGI (McKinsey Global Institute).
Romm hopes that the new Administration will bear this in mind and “contemplate banning all new coal plants that do not capture and store most of their carbon” when considering options for the abatement of carbon emissions.
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Kudos to the Climate Progress staff not only for their analysis of the MGI model for how we might mitigate climate change while sustaining economic growth, but also for their meta analysis of how energy efficiency could be a core climate solution. During a prior consideration of the MGI report, Climate Progress commentator Peter Wood opined that the McKinsey cost curve analysis and the wedges analysis make mitigation appear easy. “The barriers are political,” he states.
If we think that getting the current crop of Congress critters to do the right thing is going to be easy, then we might as well say our goodbyes to a livable planet right now.
From Clean Edge News, more on utility scale geothermal energy, specifically that Raser Technologies, a company AG readers will know for making highly efficient electric motors and generators, has acquired 50,000 acres for geothermal development.
Co-generation previously has been a hot topic on After Gutenberg and some, like regular Treehugger contributor John Laumer, still want to promote it.
“While the traditional method of producing separate heat and power has a typical combined efficiency of 45%, CHP systems can operate at efficiency levels as high as 80 percent.”
Whether it is “deeply sexy” is open to debate. The McKinsey / Vattenfall analysis shows it to be relatively expensive for the reduction in carbon equivalents that could be achieved. Certainly, the MGI study would seem to indicate that it is less advantageous than “clean nuclear power” or all the building improvements that people will make with all the extra money they have. Whereas I intensely dislike the idea of “business as usual” when it comes to electric power generation, I do wonder whether the McKinsey / Vattenfall analysis took into consideration “sunk costs”, i.e., combined heat and power can be added to existing infrastructure. Still, the risk is fostering a greenwash of power generation.
Writing for the NY Times, Matthew L. Wald notes that the number of people receiving weatherization aid is dwarfed by those receiving assistance in paying their energy bills.”
“You have six million families a year getting energy assistance, possibly eight million this year, and 150,000 getting weatherization,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, an organization of state officials.
Achieving residential energy efficiency nationwide is a far bigger job than industrial or commercial efficiency because the number of houses dwarfs the number of factories, offices and shopping centers, Mr. Wolfe said. So little has been done in the last few years that “when you start to look at the infrastructure that’s there to do residential energy efficiency in a cost-effective way, it’s very thin,” he said.
The ELPC (Environmental Law and Policy Center) is part of a national campaign that is pushing for a nationwide energy efficiency standard.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the ELPC that developing clean energy is critical to solving global warming, strengthening our economy and increasing our energy independence, I was discouraged by a glaring omission in their endorsement of national clean energy standards. If the Midwest’s environment and natural heritage truly is to be protected then dirty energy supplies must cease in addition to generating more of our electricity from clean, renewable sources and using energy more efficiently.
Global Joe Romm is back with another McKinsey report, which avers the U.S. could meet the entire 2020 emissions target by implementing greater efficiency and co-generation. Furthermore, such efforts would lower the nation’s energy bill $700 billion!
Romm avers that “Unlocking energy efficiency in the U.S. economy.” is most comprehensive analysis to date of this country’s energy efficiency opportunity.
McKinsey’s new cost-curve for potential energy savings in residential, commercial and industrial sectors. Costs are averaged.