HERE COMES THE “NEGAWATT”!!!

When looking at the looming price of oil, topping $142 a barrel today (7/8/08) and forcasts of $12 – $15 per gallon by 2010 you can’t help but look for alternative and renewable sources of energy. What if it turned out that energy efficiency and conservation was the single biggest solution? Could the campaign for “Drill more, Pay less” be too little, too late for solving our energy crisis and peak oil?

This article by Amory B. Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute answers these questions with a litany of facts to clear the air and confusion about how to look at solving our energy needs and keep the environment from further going south.

Peace,

Bruce

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Using smarter technologies, more brains and less money to wring more work from less delivered energy–what energy experts call “end-use efficiency”–is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, fastest, most diverse, least visible, least understood and most neglected way to provide energy services.

How big is it? The 46% drop in U.S. energy intensity, a measure of energy consumption per dollar of real gross domestic product, during 1975-2005 represented, by 2005, the equivalent of a new energy “source.” This source was slightly larger than annual total European energy use, 2.1 times the size of U.S. oil consumption, 3.4 times bigger than U.S. net oil imports, six times domestic oil output or net oil imports from OPEC countries and 13 times net imports from Persian Gulf countries.

Three-fourths of U.S. electricity–69% of which is used in buildings, nearly all the rest in industry–can be saved for less than the price of just running a coal or nuclear plant. This “negawatt” potential is not just in smarter motors, lights, appliances, etc., but even more in their larger systems. For example, three-fifths of the world’s electricity runs motors, and half their shaft power runs pumps and fans. Designing friction out of pipes and ducts can save 10 times as much fuel at the power plant.” -Armory Lovins

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Here is the full article on Forbes.com

The Case for Efficiency
Amory B. Lovins 07.07.08

“We can save our bottom lines, and maybe our butts, by taking economics–and efficiency–seriously.” -Armory Lovins

Physicist Amory B. Lovins has been a leading practitioner of advanced energy efficiency in buildings, vehicles and industry for over three decades. He is co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank that implements transformational energy and resource efficiency, chiefly in the private sector.