Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of units
- List of conversion factors
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Climate
- Part II Energy
- 6 Taking up arms against this sea of troubles
- 7 How fast to move: a physicist's look at the economists
- 8 Energy, emissions, and action
- 9 Fossil fuels – how much is there?
- 10 Electricity, emissions, and pricing carbon
- 11 Efficiency: the first priority
- 12 Nuclear energy
- 13 Renewables
- 14 Biofuels: is there anything there?
- 15 An energy summary
- Part III Policy
- References
- Index
11 - Efficiency: the first priority
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of units
- List of conversion factors
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Climate
- Part II Energy
- 6 Taking up arms against this sea of troubles
- 7 How fast to move: a physicist's look at the economists
- 8 Energy, emissions, and action
- 9 Fossil fuels – how much is there?
- 10 Electricity, emissions, and pricing carbon
- 11 Efficiency: the first priority
- 12 Nuclear energy
- 13 Renewables
- 14 Biofuels: is there anything there?
- 15 An energy summary
- Part III Policy
- References
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
There are many recent studies by governments, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector that all come to the same conclusions:
Improving energy efficiency is the cheapest and easiest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
Energy not used reduces imports, emits no greenhouse gases and is free;
The transportation and building sectors use far more energy than is necessary;
The total cost to the economy as a whole of most of the improvements is negative: we save money.
In this chapter I look at what might be done to improve energy efficiency in two of the three sectors of the US economy: transportation and buildings. The third sector, industry, has to have each process looked at separately and that is too big a job for this book.
Improving energy efficiency in buildings reduces electricity demand, thereby reducing fossil fuel use in generation, and reduces fossil fuel use for heating as well.
Increasing the efficiency with which energy is used in the transportation sector does more than reduce greenhouse gas emissions; it also reduces the imports of large amounts of oil to fuel that sector and thereby also reduces the export of the large amount of money that goes with those imports. With the recent increase in the price of oil, even those few people who do not believe that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is important to reduce the danger of climate change agree that reducing oil imports is important and have become allies in a move toward a more efficient economy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beyond Smoke and MirrorsClimate Change and Energy in the 21st Century, pp. 94 - 121Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010