Did You Know?

Here is a round-up of some of the most interesting reports and studies released this week about the potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy:

• The office of Vice President Biden and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a report this week containing a set of recommendations for specific federal actions that will grow green job opportunities and boost energy savings by retrofitting homes for energy efficiency. Home energy efficiency retrofits have the potential to reduce home energy bills by $21 billion annually, paying for themselves over time.  An energy efficiency resource standard (EERS) would require utility companies to prioritize efficiency and help combat the “market and non-market barriers” standing in the way of the administration’s vision for success.

• Most states have tremendous unused energy efficiency potential, according to a 50-state scorecard from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The report provides a comprehensive state energy efficiency scorecard to document best practices and recognize leadership among the states.  Maine, Minnesota and Washington lead the union, while Louisiana, North Dakota and Michigan lag behind. Hot Air hears that businesses in those states are calling on their senators to support efficiency policies that will help put them in the front-runner category next time around.

• A National Research Council report entitled, “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use,” found that burning coal in the U.S. costs about $62 billion per year in “hidden costs.”  The report was requested by Congress as part of 2005 energy legislation and sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The report did not include the cost of coal’s contribution to climate change, so this staggering figure is still an underestimate of the total real costs of coal. 

• The November cover story of Scientific American, written by Stanford University Professor Mark Z. Jacobson of the civil and environmental engineering department and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi, will map out a quantitative plan to power the entire world on wind, solar, and hydro power by 2030. It also concludes that doing so will be cheaper than continuing to rely on fossil fuels or investing in nuclear energy.