The Next 100 Days: Let's Launch a War Against Energy Waste

It is time for President Obama to mobilize us all to help build the new energy economy.

He has begun shaping the public policies we need. Now he needs to launch an Apollo project, interstate highway project, war effort and Marshall Plan all rolled into one.

For starters, he should call on us all to pick up our caulking guns and enlist in the war against energy waste – a national clean energy surge.

The potential for savings through efficiency improvements and conservation is enormous.

As Obama noted during the campaign, the United States is only the 22nd most energy-efficient major economy in the world right now. With very few exceptions, every vehicle, home, power plant, factory, community and state is hemorrhaging energy, energy dollars and greenhouse gas emissions.

Consider just a few examples:

• We lose massive amounts of energy as electricity is generated and distributed. The typical coal plant turns only a third of its fuel into productive energy and more is lost in transmission lines.

• The typical residential or commercial building could cut its energy use, and do it cost-effectively, by 25-30 percent.

• According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, 70 cents of every dollar the typical community spends on energy immediately leaves the local economy. If more energy dollars were retained through energy efficiency and locally generated renewables, the money would circulate longer in the community. The result – not unlike keeping the ball in play in a pinball machine – is a “multiplier effect” that creates more local spending, jobs and businesses.

• The U.S. Department of Energy estimated last year that the direct economic cost of oil dependence in 2008 would be $560 billion, reducing our GDP by 1.5 percent.

• A study issued last year by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimated that a 30 percent gain in national energy efficiency by 2030 would create as many as 1.3 million net new jobs.

As so many have pointed out for so long, efficiency and conservation are the lowest of the low-hanging fruit in the U.S. economy. The benefits are well known. Lower energy bills are the equivalent of new tax-free income for every family and business. Efficiency and conservation insulates consumers from rising fossil energy prices, whether they’re caused by a natural disaster, a terrorist attack in some oil-producing country, extortion by the oil barons in the Persian Gulf or carbon pricing here at home.

Thanks to the economic stimulus bill that Obama pushed through Congress earlier this year, billions of dollars in new energy efficiency investments are moving into the economy as you read this post. Stimulus funds will retrofit federal buildings, weatherize low-income homes and give states and communities more money for energy efficiency and conservation programs. Additional funds will make down payments on improving the efficiency of air and rail travel and on building a “smart” electrical grid. (For a cool explanation of smart grid technology, see the web site constructed by General Electric).

The stimulus package also provides new tax incentives for homeowners who invest in energy efficiency. The Alliance to Save Energy web site offers a handy explanation of the many tax provisions of the bill and summarizes them this way: