Energy Efficiency Could Cut Greenhouse Gases 30% by 2030

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

‘Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe Gives His Energy-Saving Tips

Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel series ‘Dirty Jobs’ gives his energy-saving tips while surrounded by the sounds of party-goers. …is it just us, or does Mike sound a little buzzed in this video? He’s awesome.

“Call me a traditionalist… I say when you walk out of a room you turn off the lights. When you walk out of a room you close the door. Don’t accelerate too quickly. Don’t break too quickly. Use the carpool lane. Say please. That won’t save energy but it will make people like you more.”

Link [Treehugger]

Living on 2,000 Watts of Energy Per Day

When you find out that the average American lives on 11,400 watts of energy per day, it makes living off 2,000 seem near impossible. But then again, Americans are incredibly creative at coming up with ways to waste energy, so maybe it’s not that hard after all. The 2,000 Watt Society is trying to prove that it’s not just possible, it can be done without sacrificing comfort and fun.

The Swiss Council of the Federal Institute of Technology wants Swiss citizens to improve the energy efficiency of all aspects of their lives to get them to the 2,000 watt goal. From the document ‘Smarter Living’, via World Changing:

In the envisioned 2000-watt society, the quality of life will not suffer at all. On the contrary, aspects such as safety and health, comfort and the development of the individual will in fact improve, and income is expected to rise by around 60 percent over the next fifty years. However, ambitious goals call for decisive action in a variety of areas, e.g. improving materials and increasing the level of energy efficiency; substituting fossil fuels with renewable forms of energy and reducing the CO2 intensity of other utilised fossil fuels; adopting a smarter way of life and rethinking current business practices, including increasing the level of professionalism in the areas of planning and investment and the operation of buildings and installations.

As seen in the graphic above, comparing a contemporary Swiss family of 4 with the 2000 Watt Society goal, most areas of life wouldn’t change too much. World Changing rightly points out that the area that would see the most change, ‘Living and Working’, is rather ambiguous. It would be interesting to see what kinds of scenarios the 2000 Watt Society proposes in order to meet these goals. Reductions in energy use without sacrificing ‘modern comforts’ is exactly what we need and there are undoubtedly lots of ways to get there.

Link [World Changing] via [Buzzfeed] + [Novatlantis]

The Simpsons Go Green(ish) for the Krustyland Ride at Universal Studios

As if the Simpsons could get any cooler. The new Simpsons-themed ride at Universal Studios is going to be green less polluting due to the installation of 27,675 LED lights, which will save 662kWh a day (about what an average house uses in a month).

From underwire:

Universal Studios Hollywood’s new Simpsons Ride celebrates the carnival-barker-style commercialism you’d expect from an attraction named after a greedy capitalist clown, but there’s more than meets the eye: Krustyland is engineered to echo the eco-friendly sensibility dramatized in The Simpsons Movie last summer, which found the city of Springfield encased in a giant bubble after Homer dumps garbage in the lake.

According to Universal officials, the Simpsons Ride boasts the largest lighting installation of LED lamps in theme park history. The ride’s 2,582 energy-saving LED lights expend 27,675 watts per hour. That’s less than a third of the 82,909 watts that would have been consumed by standard incandescent lighting used by the conventionally powered attraction previously on site, according to Universal.

End result: energy savings of 662,796 watts per day. As Homer might say in between donuts: Mmmmm, kilowatts!

No matter how you slice it, theme parks aren’t green. Typically, natural areas are clear-cut and wildlife is displaced to make room for fantasyland attractions where tons of electricity is used and people generate trash like nobody’s business. And, let’s not even go into the fact that we remove real wildlife to replace it with a cleaned-up version of it that lets us ‘enjoy it on our own terms’. However, at least having LED lights is trying, right? It’s better than what they’ve been doing so far. Baby steps are better than the status quo.

Link [underwire]

The Internet Saves 10 Watts of Energy for Every Watt it Uses

Geeks are great. And a new study now shows that they’re are also green.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy did a study on computer usage and found that for every watt of energy used by the internet, 10 watts are saved elsewhere. EcoGeek has it:

They [The ACEEE] have put numbers to what I have long expected to be true. Folks who complain about how much energy computers waste are crazy. Computers save tons of energy, while, themselves, using less energy than the light bulb used to light the workstation. And now we know how much.

The study focused on a metric called “energy intensity.” Basically, that’s the amount of energy necessary to produce a dollar of economic output. The first major drop in energy intensity occurred after the oil crisis in the 1970s. That was a cost-based drop, not generally the ideal.

So how do computers save us energy?

• They have allowed everything to become more efficient.
• They people and things to travel digitally, instead of physically. For example: meetings online instead of driving your SUV to the office.
• They allow us to do our shopping online instead of driving your SUV to the retail store. (Did I already mention the SUV?)
• And lastly they allow me how to tell YOU to put the earth first, instead of me driving over to your house in an SUV, knocking on your door and telling you face to face.

I knew there was a good reason that I have this weird relationship with my laptop. Oh, and on a side note, I do not drive an SUV.

Link [EcoGeek]

Photo: Flickr user NaOH