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Executive Summary
America can and must move away
from our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels and toward a New Energy
Future. We can do this by tapping into our abundant supplies of clean,
renewable, home-grown energy sources and by deploying our technological know-how
to use energy more efficiently.
Recognizing the
promise of energy efficiency and renewable energy to transform our economy, a
group of environmental, consumer, labor and civic organizations have endorsed
the New Energy Future platform, which consists of the following four goals:
• Reduce our
dependence on oil by saving one-third of the oil we use today by 2025 (7
million barrels per day).
• Harness
clean, renewable, homegrown energy sources like wind, solar and farm-based bio-fuels
for at least a quarter of all energy needs by 2025.
• Save energy
with high performance homes, buildings and appliances so that by 2025 we use 10
percent less energy than we do today.
• Invest in a
New Energy Future by committing $30 billion over the next 10 years to the New
Energy for America Initiative, thus tripling research and development funding
for the energy-saving and renewable energy technologies we need to achieve
these goals.
In fall 2006,
we released a white paper describing a plausible scenario for achieving those targets
and estimating the benefits in terms of fossil fuel savings that would result.
According to that analysis, America
could achieve major reductions in the use of all fossil fuels by realizing the
goals of the New Energy Future platform. By 2025, America could:
• Save 10.8
million barrels of oil per day, equal to four-fifths the amount of oil we
currently import from all other nations in the world.
• Save 9.1
trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, nearly twice as much as is
currently used annually in all of America’s
homes and more than is currently used in all of America’s industrial facilities.
• Save 900
million tons of coal per year, or about 80 percent of all the coal we consumed
in the United States
in 2005.
• Save 1.7
billion megawatt-hours of electricity per year, 30 percent more than was used
in all the households in America
in 2005.
Achieving these
fossil fuel savings would help solve many of America’s
pressing energy problems – ranging from dependence on foreign oil to global
warming – and would likely do so while creating jobs and contributing to the
long-term stability of America’s
economy. This paper describes the technologies – many of which exist today –
that can enable America
to achieve the goals of the New Energy Future platform.
Energy
Efficiency Technologies
Numerous technologies exist to reduce energy use in homes and businesses:
• Home
weatherization – including air sealing, insulation and window replacement – can
cut energy use for home heating by 20 to 30 percent.
• Efficient
furnaces, like those meeting federal Energy Star standards, can cut energy use
for heating by 20 percent compared to today’s furnaces and by 40 percent
compared to those 20 years old or older.
• Solar and
heat pump water heaters can reduce energy use for water heating by half to
two-thirds, and more water-efficient clothes washers and dishwashers can
provide additional savings.
• Businesses
can save energy, too. Wal-Mart, for example, has already committed to reducing
its in-store energy use by 20 percent. And one recent analysis found that the
use of more efficient motors and improved controls in the industrial, electric
and commercial sectors could reduce total U.S. electricity demand by as much
as 15 to 25 percent.
• New
technologies and combinations of technologies – such as those included in
zero-energy homes and low-energy commercial buildings – could lead to even more
dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use in homes, business and industry in the
years to come.
Oil
Saving Technologies
America
can significantly reduce its consumption of oil by making cars go farther on a
gallon of gasoline, reducing the rate of growth of vehicle travel, and using
plant-based fuels to substitute for some of the oil we use for transportation.
•
Fuel-efficient technologies like advanced engines and transmissions and
improved electronics can improve the fuel economy of today’s cars by 50 percent
or more, while hybrid-electric and other advanced vehicles make a 45 miles per
gallon fuel economy standard feasible within the next two decades. Similar
improvements can be made to the fuel economy of heavy-duty trucks.
• High gasoline
prices are already reducing the growth of vehicle travel in the United States,
but expanding the range of transportation choices – through expanded transit
and increased support for carpooling, telecommuting, walking and biking – could
enable more Americans to avoid high prices at the pump and increasingly
frustrating commutes.
• Production of
plant-based fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel in the United States has more than doubled
over the last four years, helping to reduce our dependence on petroleum. New
technologies that convert plant residues and energy crops into bio-fuels could
make bio-fuels a more promising alternative and allow us to further reduce our
use of oil in transportation.
• New
automotive technologies – like “plug-in” hybrids – are being developed that
could bring the dream of 100 MPG cars within reach, or even eliminate the use
of oil in vehicles altogether.
Renewable
Energy Technologies
America
has access to immense renewable energy resources from the sun, earth and crops
and from the movement of wind and water. The technology to tap those resources
is advancing rapidly and is increasingly competitive in cost with fossil fuel
technologies.
• The wind
blowing through the Great Plains could
generate enough electricity to power the entire country. Wind power
installations in the United
States have doubled over the last four
years, and wind power is among the cheapest sources of new power generation in
some parts of the country.
• Solar energy
could conceivably generate more than enough electricity to power the entire United States.
The cost of solar panels has declined dramatically in recent years and solar
power installations worldwide nearly doubled between 2002 and 2004. Continued
advances in solar technology could bring solar power within reach of more
Americans within the next several years.
• Plant-based
sources of energy, called “biomass,” already provide a substantial amount of
energy in America
and can provide even more. A federal advisory group has set a target of having
biomass account for 5 percent of industrial and electric generator energy use
by 2020.
• Immense
amounts of energy are contained within the earth. Experts estimate that as much
as 100,000 megawatts of geothermal power – equal to about 10 percent of today’s
electricity generation capacity – could be economically viable in the United States.
Improving
today’s clean energy technologies and developing tomorrow’s technologies
requires a substantial investment in federal energy research and development.
• Federal
investment in clean energy research and development (R&D) has resulted in
many technological breakthroughs with big dividends for America’s
economy. A study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that R&D
breakthroughs in just six energy efficiency technologies yielded economic
benefits of about $30 billion on an R&D investment of about $400 million –
a return on investment of 75-to-1.
• Federal
investment in energy research and development has declined dramatically from
its peak during the energy crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The United States
now spends less than half as much on energy R&D programs in the public and
private sectors as it did in 1980. Clean energy programs have faced continued
funding pressure in recent Bush administration budget proposals.
• Increasing
federal clean energy research and development funding to $3 billion per year –
about triple today’s funding level – over 10 years would enable researchers to
focus on several goals:
o Improving the performance and economic
competitiveness of existing clean energy technologies.
o Redesigning our energy system to remove existing hurdles to improved energy
efficiency and the integration of renewable energy into our economy.
o Designing new energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.
o Reducing the cost of producing clean energy technologies and coordinating
“real world” demonstration of those technologies.
o Addressing any social or environmental impacts of clean energy technologies.
The
United States
should adopt the goals of the New Energy Future platform and marshal the
political, economic and scientific resources necessary to meet those goals.
Public policy
changes can play an important role in advancing the nation toward the goals of
the New Energy Future platform. The following policies would represent a strong
first step:
Energy
Efficiency in Homes, Business and Industry
• Set strong
energy efficiency standards for household and commercial appliances.
• Strengthen
residential and commercial building codes and ensure that they are adequately
enforced.
• Require
utilities to meet growing energy needs through energy efficiency improvements
before building new power plants.
• Expand and
invest in energy efficiency programs to help homeowners and businesses install
the latest technologies in their homes and businesses.
• Eliminate
obstacles to the use of combined heat and power (CHP), which would dramatically
improve opportunities for industrial and commercial energy efficiency.
Oil
Savings
• Increase fuel
economy standards for cars, light trucks and SUVs to 45 miles per gallon over
the next decade-and-a-half and set strong fuel economy standards for heavy-duty
trucks.
• Set goals for
the use of plant-based fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel and enact policies
that ensure that those fuels are developed cleanly and efficiently.
• Encourage the
development and use of advanced technology vehicles like “plug-in” hybrids that
can achieve 100 miles per gallon of gasoline or more.
• Invest in
expanded and improved public transit service, promote “smart growth” practices
that reduce the need for driving, and encourage other transportation choices
like telecommuting, carpooling, biking and walking.
Renewable
Energy
• Enact a
national renewable energy standard, similar to those already in place in 20
states that would require a minimum percentage of the nation’s electricity to
come from renewable sources.
• Increase
research and development funding to develop the next generation of renewable
energy technologies.
• Provide
consistent, long-term tax incentives for the installation of renewable energy
technologies.
• Require
utilities to prioritize renewable energy development over the construction of
conventional power plants to satisfy electricity demand.
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