Sep 17 2008

Efficiency, Baby, Efficiency

Yesterday was a busy day for energy efficiency advocates, who contend that drilling offshore for oil is not a panacea for U.S. energy needs. In addition to the Energy Future Coalition statement discussed below, the august American Physical Society issued a major report on Tuesday titled Energy Future: Think Efficiency, calling for active federal promotion of energy efficiency research and development.

The society's web site notes that the APS "represents more than 46,000 U.S. physicists in academia and industry and includes nearly 60 Nobel Prize Laureates." The APS has a history of advocating energy research dating back to 1975, during the first oil crisis.

This report--drafted with the help of local experts such as Dan Kammen at UC Berkeley, Mark Levine at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Burton Richter of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Dan Sperling at UC Davis--focuses on the need for more research funding and tighter federal energy standards in the transportation and building sectors. Together those sectors account for 68 percent of U.S. oil consumption and about 70 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.

Their recommendations won't break the bank--for example, they'd like to see a relatively modest increase of about $150 million in federal R&D for building energy efficiency, as well as a significant boost in research support for battery technology for electric vehicles.

More controversially, they support mandating fuel economy of at least 35 miles per gallon for gasoline-powered light-duty vehicles (including SUVs and pickups) by 2020, rising to 50 mpg by 2030.

In addition, they propose measures to achieve "signifcant levels of construction of cost-effective residential zero energy buildings (ZEB) -- buildings that use no fossil fuels -- by 2020."

Fuel efficiency is an old idea, but the ZEB concept is catching on fast. Last year, New York Senator Hillary Clinton introduced the "Zero-Emissions Building Act of 2007," which directed federal agencies to steadily reduce the carbon footprint of new or renovated federal buildings until all became "zero-emissions" buildings by 2030.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall | Comments (0) digg delicioussend to a friendprint entry

 

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Efficiency , Transportation

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Recent Comments

  • This is being rather generous to Lutz. 1. The "Volt", in no small part, will be targeted as a product to people who care about energy and environmental issues. These people don't embrace Lutz' antideluvian concepts of rejecting science. How responsible is it for a GM executive to be rejecting the science? 2. As well, Lutz didn't exactly sound too enthusiastic about the Volt itself. 3. And, GM public communications has 'defended' Lutz in rather absurd ways. -A Siegel
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  • This article is right on - small businesses have a huge role to play in sustainability. Not only do they add up in aggregate, but many small businesses operate in industries that can have a significant environmental impact depending on the exact practices, like dry cleaners, auto repair shops, etc. Green is also starting to affect the bottom line more and more, customers are increasingly voting with their feet for more sustainable businesses as can be seen from the growth of sites like http://www.ecovian.com. This is also a huge opportunity for small businesses to leapfrog their bigger brothers by being more agile in adopting these measures. -Emily
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  • Great entry, Katie. Love the level of detail you managed to get in there! Probably won't be able to compete with coal and oil any time the next decade, but definitely a great technology to look into! Keep it up :) -Rune (Norway)
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