Energy Efficiency Could Cut Greenhouse Gases 30% by 2030
August 2, 2008 · Print This Article
What’s the best way to keep power plants from polluting the earth? Cut demand for electricity. It’s so simple, and it could work so well if everyone participated. Power companies are basically paid to pollute right now, with a drop in demand being the only way to prevent them from constantly building new power plants. In 2007, consulting firm McKinsey and Co. found that we could cut greenhouse gases by 30% in just over 20 years if we improved energy efficiency in buildings, appliances and factories.
From Salon:
While a few states have energy-efficiency strategies, none matches what California has done. In the past three decades, electricity consumption per capita grew 60 percent in the rest of the nation, while it stayed flat in high-tech, fast-growing California. If all Americans had the same per capita electricity demand as Californians currently do, we would cut electricity consumption 40 percent. If the entire nation had California’s much cleaner electric grid, we would cut total U.S. global-warming pollution by more than a quarter without raising American electric bills. And if all of America adopted the same energy-efficiency policies that California is now putting in place, the country would never have to build another polluting power plant.
How did California do it? In part, a smart California Energy Commission has promoted strong building standards and the aggressive deployment of energy-efficient technologies and strategies — and has done so with support of both Democratic and Republican leadership over three decades.
Most of us already know about the more obvious ways to conserve energy - through better insulation and more energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling. California has gone far above and beyond that, however, plugging residential air duct leaks, redesigning the outdoor lighting in parking lots, requiring flat roofs on commercial buildings to be painted white to reflect sunlight and subsidizing LED traffic lights.
Another important factor is that the state of California adopted regulations that “decouple” utility company profits from how much electricity they sell and allowing utilities to take a share of any energy savings they help businesses and consumers achieve.
Just making these sorts of changes – without going to extremes like sitting around in the dark half the time – can help us all offset all of the projected demand for electricity in 2030 AND mostly negate the need for new coal-fired electric plants! Time to get started.
Link [Salon.com]
Photo credit: Northwest Community Energy
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There’s just one problem with your approach. It ignores population growth. Our population is projected to grow by about 30% by 2030. So, if you cut per capita energy consumption by 30%, you’ve gained nothing toward reducing total carbon emissions.
I work in a industry that serves the coal business. My question is what will the millions of people that rely on coal, do to feed there family. Truckers that haul coal. Underground/surface miners. The hundreds of companies that serve the coal industry like mine? The day shift workers at a power plant? The enitre Central Appalachain reigon would shut down (Eastern KY South West, West Virginia.) I would really like a honest response. I am not trying to stir the pot but would just lke to know what Earth First thinks should be done. Have you ever been to these places? Have you ever seen how the reigon relys on the coal fields? What should be done with the people without jobs and what is the energy answer? Thanks and look forward to hearing a response
@Matt- We need to replace coal related jobs with green jobs. Give the miners a job in a factory building wind turbines or solar panels. A responsible shift from dirty sources like coal doesn’t leave the coal mining (and trucking) families behind- it brings them into the new reality of green, renewable energy.
Coal miners don’t go down into the bowels of the earth because they love getting black lung and breaking their backs all day- they do it to provide for their families. Let’s give them that same chance by doing something that not only provides energy for the rest of us, but that does it in a way that doesn’t destroy the world (and their health).
Being anti-coal does NOT mean being anti-coal miner.