We're leaving money on the table by not improving energy efficiency (image by pfala, CC 2.5 licensed)
Would you spend $520 to save $1,200? That's the choice McKinsey & Co is offering to the U.S. about energy efficiency. In their , released last week, McKinsey shows how the U.S. can reduce its non-transportation energy use by 23%, eliminate the emissions of 1.1 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually, and save $1,200 billion, for a cost of about $520 billion.
They do recognize that achieving these results requires some new thinking on our parts:
According this this analysis, from , within 15 years the cost of concentrating solar power will be less than the cost of "clean" coal, at least in Australia. The analysis is based on the rates of change in cost between the two energy sources. With the cost of coal increasing, relatively, and CSP decreasing, the cost lines eventually cross, leaving CSP cheaper.
In addition, the article mentions offhandedly that connecting the Queensland and South Australian electricity grids would "likely pay for itself quickly just in increased efficiencies brought to the existing grid."
I'm a big fan of the New Yorker, and read most issues cover to cover. Their politics usually align with mine, and I always enjoyed Hendrik Hertzberg sticking it to the Cheney administration. But I have to take issue with some of their economic opinions. In particular, David Owen's Talk of Town, , in the March 20 issue got me hot and bothered.
Owen's basic position seems to be that to be sustainable we can't spend, and if we spend we're not sustainable. Therefore, the stimulus package and a long term goal for sustainability are incompatible. (With the subtext, apparently, that stimulus is more important.)
I have several issues with Owen's position. For example, Owens doesn't say much about spending on sustainability - there $15 billion of that. Much of that, because it's focused on energy efficiency, will result in improved productivity. It turns out you can get a lot of productivity from sustainability improvements. It's one of the magic tricks - called the "triple bottom line" - you spend less or the same up front, you save more, and you're healthier and more productive. In this case sustainability is actually directly improving the economy.
Money ('El Altimo de los Mohicanos' - photo by wakalani, CC 2.0 licensed)
One of the biggest problems for residential solar electricity generation is that it just costs too darn much to install those panels on your roof. Over the next five and ten years this will change significantly as new developments from the labs make it into large-scale production. Eventually houses will be generating all their own electricity using photovoltaics as a matter of course.
But is there a way to think about the cost today that makes the cost even seem reasonable?
August was a great month for energy storage breakthroughs! In addition, a big talking head talks big, and a business-of-green-energy announcement make my list of top stories.
Wicked Barrel, by batintherain (Creative Commons license)
My very basic analysis of Al Gore's call to action for "100% carbon free electricity" yesterday had the virtue of being dead simple. of did back in July, based on wind energy generation, that reaches a similar conclusion to mine:
The short answer is: while 100% is probably unrealistic, it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to get pretty close to that number (say, in the 50-90% range) in that timeframe, and it is very likely that it makes a LOT of sense economically.
Photo: Bill Gantz (Creative Commons License: Some Rights Reserved)
In his a few weeks ago Academy Award and Nobel Prize-winner exhorted the United States to "produce all electricity from “carbon-free sources” by 2018." This is a pretty abstract goal, in those terms - Gore (appropriately) didn't go into great detail about how this should be done or even what it means in specific practical steps. Depending on your point of view and background knowledge about energy, the goal may seem easy or incredibly difficult, or even impossible, especially without further analysis.
