Why Conservation Is the World's Best Energy Source
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.25.07
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Check out the graph. The USA uses a
lot of energy, but squeezes a billion dollars of gross
national product out of a quarter as much as China.
That's good. However it uses almost twice as much
energy per billion bucks of GNP as Britain and Japan.
How do they do it? People in Europe or Japan live
rather well and get to shop at Muji and Conrans, have
decent health care and even public transit, so it
can't be quality of life. Perhaps it is that they tax
gas to death so that cars are smaller and used less
often. Perhaps energy for heating is priced so that
people tend to keep the thermostat down and avoid air
conditioning. Perhaps they live in denser cities.
Perhaps land is expensive because they preserve more
of it for agriculture instead of development. Perhaps
they conserve.
Yet even in thrifty Europe only one third of all the energy produced is put to work. The rest disappears into the air or sea through leaky pipes and poor insulation. In cars, 70 to 80 percent of the energy burned does not end up being used for the purpose of moving the car, it goes out the tailpipe or heats the radiator fluid. |
All the VC money is chasing wind and solar, hydrogen and ethanol; perhaps green investors should read about how "One reliable source of energy is not even close to being depleted: Simply saving it may be the safest and cleanest option mankind has. It also happens to make a tidy profit." Read a remarkable series of articles on Conservation as the World's Best Energy Source in ::der Speigel