Obama’s budget good for energy efficiency

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
February 16, 2012

 

President Obama’s 2013 budget caused a lot of smiles this week among energy efficiency advocates – even if it is more of a wish list than anything else. Obama calls for about $1.2 billion in spending for energy efficiency.

 

What’s this mean to the energy efficiency industry?

 

Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, says that Obama’s budget represents a dramatic increase from current efficiency spending. And while the sector won’t receive that kind of money in the final budget, it still should do well, given that the starting point is so high in a time when many budget items begin with cuts.

 

“The administration’s vigorous support for energy efficiency at this stage of the game should help ensure that we get funding almost as robust as we have currently,” she said.

 

It’s not easy figuring exactly how much the federal government spends on efficiency now, since funding is spread out over several programs and sometimes infused into budgets for defense, science, agriculture, environment and commerce.

 

By ASE’s count Congress appropriated $811 million in 2012 for energy efficiency programs in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), and $50 million for Energy Star at the Environmental Protection Agency.

 

In all, Obama increases the Department of Energy budget by 3.2%,  bringing it to $27.2 billion for 2013. He allots $2.3 billion for both the efficiency and renewable energy programs in EERE, and maintains Energy Star spending at the same level. Funding for  high-risk research increases 27% and for manufacturing advancement 150%. Obama offers an 80% increase in programs that cut energy use in buildings and factories. He also continues to press Congress to pass the HomeStar bill to reduce household energy use.

 

Raising spending might sound alarms, given the US deficit. However, spending on efficiency actually decreases society’s energy expenses. Energy efficiency cost about 1.6 to 3.3 cents/kWh for utilities in 14 states studied by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Had those utilities built power plants rather than conserved energy, they would have paid 6 to 14 cents/kWh.

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February 16, 2012 | | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

Opportunities for energy innovators

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
February 8, 2012

 

For a long time ‘clean’ and  ‘green’ marked the forward trend in the energy industry. Then came the quest for ‘smart’ energy.  And now ‘innovation’ is the buzzword.

 

It’s easy to see why.  As Americans, we believe our ability to innovate sets us apart in today’s international market.  Sure China can manufacture computers and cell phones more quickly and cheaply, but we came up with Google and IPhones in the first place.

 

The energy industry offers a lot of opportunity for US innovators, given our aging grid, quest for alternatives to fossil fuels, and our glimpse into the possibilities of a virtual, democratized grid that gives consumers more control over their energy use and production.

 

But will energy innovation help the US job market? Or will the products be conceived here but be manufactured elsewhere?

 

Siemens U.S. CEO Eric Spiegel offers some interesting thinking in a recent piece: “Where the Jobs Are: Higher Technology Manufacturing.” He takes issue with the idea that US manufacturing is doomed.

 

Such thinking wrongly assumes that the manufactured products of the future, like those of today, will be commodities, “the kind that could be built of equal quality, with equal technology, anywhere in the world,” Spiegel wrote. Blue jeans are his example.

 

He said that if innovation delivers, tomorrow’s products will be more high-end and require “skilled workers, precision assembly, intensive research, and complex technology,” the kind of thing the US does well.

 

Many new energy products, like smart grid technologies and wind turbines, require skilled manufacturing. Another, he points out, is the high efficiency natural gas turbine that Siemens builds in North Carolina. If the US remains an innovation leader, more of these high-end manufacturing jobs will make their way here, according to Spiegel.

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February 9, 2012 | | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

Clean energy: How much hot air?

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
February 1, 2012

 

NewScientist’s January 28 issue is likely to unsettle clean energy advocates – but it is worth the read.

 

The cover article, “Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever,” posits that even renewable energy can warm the planet, and eventually change climate, if we continue to ratchet up power production to serve our ever increasing demand for electricity.

 

It turns out that wind farms create heat, albeit a miniscule amount compared with fossil fuels or nuclear power, according to the article. Research from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign indicates that wind turbines heat the ground nearby at night, apparently caused by the turbines sucking air downward from above.

 

Solar panels, too, create unintended heat.  The article points to a study that indicates building a 1-TW solar power plant in California’s Mojave desert could raise temperatures in the air by 0.4 degrees Celsius. When dark solar panels cover light-colored sand, they warm the air and change temperature and wind patterns within a 300-kilometer radius, the article says.

 

Energy almost always creates some sort of waste heat, even in powering our cell phones and computers, says Eric Chaisson of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in the article. Electricity heats the circuits. We don’t use this heat; it dissipates into the air.

 

Of course, this is one of those glass half-full or half-empty issues. Heat by-products are not bad thing if we make use of them. Farmers already take advantage of the localized warming caused by wind turbines to fight frost, says the article. And while solar panels may generate heat when they cover light-colored surfaces, like sand, they cool when placed over dark surfaces, like a black roof.

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February 1, 2012 | | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Much light, little heat efficiency

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
January 26, 2012

 

Energy efficiency in the US is much light and little heat – literally.  Government policy pays a great deal of attention to saving electricity, but focuses little on the thermal energy we waste.

 

“Policy is electricity-centric in the US. Unless you are making kilowatts, the most efficient investments are off the radar,” said Rob Thornton, president of the International District Energy Association (IDEA), who I recently interviewed while writing this year’s edition of Pennwell’s US Guide to Combined Heat and Power Companies.

 

We throw away a lot of the heat. Power plants, for example, create heat as a byproduct of generation. Rather than reusing this thermal energy, we often let it dissipate into the air. As a result, we waste more energy than Japan uses for everything, according to Amory Lovins, author of “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era.”

 

There is good news, however. Thornton and others I interviewed see a growing change in Washington’s attitude about combined heat and power (CHP), district energy, and other efficient methods of using thermal energy. Movers and shakers are becoming more aware of these energy alternatives. In addition, states are increasingly incorporating heat efficiency into clean energy portfolio standards.

 

“Finally, after all of these years, combined heat and power has become a hot topic in the political community,” said R. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

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January 26, 2012 | | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Three jokers in the energy deck

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
January 18, 2012

 

This is the era of Big Oil. Could the next be the era of Big Efficiency?

 

A new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy suggests the possibility. Re-invented with today’s smart energy technologies, energy efficiency could displace 40 to 60 percent of our total energy needs by the year 2050, according to The Long-Term Energy Efficiency Potential:  What the Evidence Suggests.

 

Sound far-fetched?  ACEEE says history backs its assertion. Over the last 40 years we tripled the US economy, “and three-quarters of the energy needed to fuel that growth came from an amazing variety of efficiency advances—not new energy supplies,” said the report.  Energy forecasters at the time predicted we would be using far more energy than we do now. The advent of the computer, the Internet, energy savings appliances and other efficiencies saved us a lot of money and a lot of oil. In 1970, our economy required 15,900 British Thermal Units of energy to support $1 of economic activity; by 2010 we needed only 7,300 Btus.

 

But there is a problem in repeating this feat. Today’s energy policy begins with the premise that we need to build more power plants, more refineries and more delivery systems. We do not try to first achieve greater efficiency. In other words, we build more energy infrastructure before we try to wring more work out of each unit of energy we produce.  If we instead pushed efficiency first, the US could save $400 billion per year in energy costs, amounting to about $2,600 per household, according to ACEEE.

 

“The U.S. would prosper more if investments in new energy were not crowding out needed investments in energy efficiency,” said John A. “Skip” Laitner, ACEEE director of economic and social analysis.

 

In short, we are thinking small about efficiency, when we should be thinking big.

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January 19, 2012 | | Tags: , , | No Comments »
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