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Utility Energy Efficiency Vision Can Save Billions, Fight Climate Change
More than 60 energy, environmental, and other organizations have collaborated on a new report that could save Americans more than $500 billion in energy costs over 25 years and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 90 million vehicles. This report, the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Vision for 2025, provides a framework for states, utilities and other stakeholders to consider when seeking policies and programs to achieve all cost effective energy efficiency measures.
The action plan, launched in 2006, is facilitated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. The plan provides five recommendations for helping states and utilities overcome policy, regulatory, and other barriers that limit investment in energy efficiency even when investment in more efficient homes, buildings and industries would cost less than new supply and would lead to overall lower energy bills. Along with the vision for 2025, the Action Plan Leadership Group released a number of 'how-to' resources to help parties meet energy efficiency commitments and announced new commitments under the action plan from more than 30 organizations. The list of organizations and their new commitments can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/eeactionplan under Leadership Commitments.
The action plan is advancing the dialogue on removing barriers to energy efficiency as a resource to serve electricity customers and promoting policy and program best practices among gas and electric utilities, their regulators and partner organizations. Nearly 120 organizations have already taken action over the past year to make the action plan a reality. These commitments to energy efficiency from 42 utility commissions and state and local agencies, 34 utilities, 9 large-end-users, and nearly 40 other organizations have helped remove barriers to energy efficiency by establishing and supporting new energy efficiency programs, collaborating and the state and local levels, exploring policies to align utility incentives with cost-effective energy efficiency, educating stakeholders and meeting aggressive energy savings goals.
The vision document, additional new resources, and a full list of new commitments and successes to date: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/actionplan/resources.htm.
Portland Considers Carbon Tax Plan on Buildings
In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the area, Portland, Oregon city officials plan to charge builders hundreds of dollars for each new home and commercial building that is not extremely energy efficient. It also would require, as part of every existing home sale that an energy efficiency report be done by home inspectors. Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the carbon fee and inspection requirement would levy taxes upon builders who merely comply with the energy efficiency requirements of the Oregon building code. It would then pay cash rewards to developers who make buildings that save at least 45 percent more energy than the code requires. Educational and technical assistance also are to be incorporated into the policy.
The policy would apply to all new commercial and residential buildings, as well as significant commercial remodels. Rules for which renovations will be required to comply probably will be based on standards already in place at the city’s Bureau of Development Services.
Details of the plan have not been worked out. The plan will go before Portland residents, in hearings, in January. With passage, the carbon-fee rules would be in place by 2010. The plan also helps maintain the city's reputation nationally as a hotbed of green living and stokes a friendly competition with Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Austin, Texas--cities that regularly seek to out-green each other. They contend that regions at the leading edge of the sustainability movement will develop local expertise to fill those needs and grow jobs locally as they help other cities imitate their innovations.
Report Finds Major Economic Benefits to Efficiency, Renewables
The U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency industries created jobs for 8.5 million people in 2006, while generating more than a trillion dollars in sales, $100 billion in profits, and $150 billion in increased federal, state, and local government tax revenues, according to a new report from the American Solar Energy Society (ASES). The report notes that it is difficult to define the energy efficiency industry, but even focusing on the renewable energy industry, it found 196,000 people directly employed by the industry, a total of 452,000 jobs created, and revenues of $39.2 billion in 2006.
Looking forward to 2030, the report examines three scenarios: a "business as usual" scenario, with no major policy changes; a moderate scenario that includes incremental policy advances; and an advanced scenario of aggressive growth in renewable energy and energy efficiency. In the "business as usual" scenario, the jobs created by renewable energy increase 190% by 2030, while jobs created by energy efficiency increase by 85%. In the moderate scenario, the jobs created by renewable energy increase nearly 7-fold, while jobs created by energy efficiency more than double. And in the advanced scenario, the jobs created by renewable energy increase 17-fold, while jobs created by energy efficiency quadruple. In the advanced scenario, renewable energy revenues increase to nearly $600 billion, while energy efficiency revenues increase to almost $4 trillion. The report also includes a case study on renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in Ohio. See the ASES press release (http://www.ases.org/press/2007_jobs_report.htm) and the full report (http://www.ases.org/ASES-JobsReport-Final.pdf).
NREL Report Sees Near-Term Supply Shortage for Renewable Power
A combination of state renewable energy requirements and voluntary "green power" purchases of renewable energy are causing the demand for renewable energy to exceed the supply, according to a recent report from DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Published in late October, the report notes that green power purchases reached 12 million megawatt-hours in 2006, a three-fold increase from 2003. Meanwhile, 25 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that require renewable energy to provide from 2% to 30% of each state's electricity supply within the next 5 to 15 years.
Noting that most of the new renewable energy capacity is currently in the form of wind power, the report projects near-term renewable energy capacity increases using two scenarios: a steady increase of 4,000 megawatts (MW) per year through 2010, and an increase that accelerates to 7,000 MW per year by 2010. Assuming a continued growth in green power of 35% per year, and taking into account the amount of renewable power required by the states, the report finds that demand for renewable power is already slightly exceeding the supply. In the "steady increase" scenario, supply lags further and further behind demand through 2010, while the "accelerating supply" scenario comes much closer to meeting demand, but still falls short.
The report concludes that there is a national need to accelerate renewable energy deployment from all energy sources to meet the burgeoning demand for renewable power. It also notes that future policy changes could increase the demand or slow the increase in the supply, while a supply shortage could drive up costs in the green power market and discourage the voluntary purchasing of renewable power. See the NREL report on the Green Power Network Web site (http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/pdfs/42266.pdf).
Midwestern Governors Sign Climate and Energy Pacts
Governors from six Midwestern states—Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—and the Premier of Manitoba signed an agreement that will lead to a regional cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions. The Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord commits the six states and the province to establish targets for greenhouse gas reductions and to develop the cap-and-trade system, all within the next year. The targets will apply to multiple sectors (not just electric utilities) and will be "consistent with the 60 to 80 percent recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota also signed on as observers to the agreement, which will be fully implemented within the next two and a half years.
In addition, all of the above Midwestern states, as well as Nebraska and North Dakota, adopted an energy strategy for improved energy efficiency, increased deployment of renewable energy and low-carbon fossil fuel technologies, and carbon dioxide sequestration. Called the Energy Security and Climate Stewardship Platform for the Midwest, the plan places a heavy emphasis on renewable power and biofuels, including a goal for the region to draw on renewable energy for 30% of its electricity needs by 2030 and a goal for E85 to be available at one third of the region's filling stations by 2025.
The energy strategy also calls for establishing: a program to help each state government procure biobased products; corridors through the Midwest along which E85 will be available; a database and permitting and siting guidance for advanced bioenergy facilities; a regional initiative to address the electric transmission infrastructure needed to support wind power; and a regional initiative to develop transmission corridors that will support a variety of low-carbon energy resources. All of these programs and initiatives are meant to get underway during the first half of 2008. See the press release from Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/journal_media_detail.asp?prid=3027), the greenhouse gas accord (http://www.midwesterngovernors.org/resolutions/GHGAccord.pdf), and the energy strategy (http://www.midwesterngovernors.org/resolutions/Platform.pdf).
Final Climate Change Report Raises Red Flags for the Future
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued the final report from its fourth assessment on climate change. Its previous assessment reports were issued in 1990, 1995, and 2001. The new "synthesis" report, which summarizes the results from three working groups that were issued earlier this year, is described by the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme as "essential reading for every person on the planet who cares about the future." Also described as a "pocket guide for policymakers," the report underlines the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also noting that societies must step up efforts to adapt to the changing climate.
In short, the report concludes that the climate is definitely warming, and that most of the warming over the past 50 years was very likely caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions have very likely contributed to rising sea levels and are likely to have contributed to changes in wind patterns. With global greenhouse gas emissions expected to increase in the next few decades, the report anticipates increasing impacts on health; water and food supplies; ecosystems; and coastal areas. Particularly dire impacts are expected in Africa and Asia. And while the sea level rise from thermal expansion is expected to be significant over a time period of many centuries, there is a possibility that dynamic processes in ice sheets seen in recent observations, but not fully assessed in the report, could lead to a more rapid rise in sea levels.
On the bright side, the report concludes that there is great potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades using a wide range of technologies, including energy efficiency and renewable energy. According to the report, achieving the reductions will require the institution of the proper incentives and the removal of market barriers. As noted in the report, by 2050 the costs of taking this action correspond to slowing the average global growth in gross domestic product by less than 0.12%. Meanwhile, the impacts of climate change are very likely to impose net annual costs that will increase over time, but there is great uncertainty as to how large those costs will be and how they will be distributed over the globe. See the full IPCC report (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf).
ASHRAE Solicits Applicants for Washington Fellowship, Internship
The ASHRAE Washington Office is pleased to announce two excellent opportunities for ASHRAE members (one for students and one for professional members):
Washington Internship for Students of Engineering (WISE)-- Each year, outstanding engineering students are selected to spend nine weeks in a special summer program in Washington, D.C. to learn how government officials make decisions on complex technological issues and how engineers can contribute to legislative and regulatory public policy decisions. The WISE Program is ranked as one of the best Internship opportunities in the U.S. by the Princeton Review. The students work under the guidance of a prominent engineering professor who serves as Faculty-Member-in-Residence. Students also interact with and are mentored by representatives of their sponsoring societies. A stipend of $2,100.00 is provided to cover the Intern's living and travel expenses. Lodging is provided; participants are housed in a dormitory on the campus of George Washington University in the heart of Washington, DC. Applications are due by December 31, 2007. More details on the program are available at http://www.wise-intern.org/ and http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy/page/1226.
ASHRAE Washington Fellowship--ASHRAE is sponsoring a one year Federal Fellowship Program known as the ASHRAE Washington Fellowship. This program will enable a selected ASHRAE member to devote a year working within the federal government providing engineering and technical advice to policy makers in either Congress, a Federal Agency (e.g., DOE, DHS, GSA), or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This Fellowship is geared to establish and nurture critical links between federal decision-makers and engineering professionals to support public policy that benefits the well-being of the nation and the planet. Federal Government Fellowships provide a valuable public service to the nation while at the same time providing engineers with a unique opportunity to participate directly in the policy making process. This is an exciting, rewarding, and educational period in their professional careers. This enriching experience enables Fellows to bring back to their employers an insider's perspective on government decision making that can contribute significantly to the mission and vision of the organization. Fellowship candidates should possess a PhD or other terminal degree in an engineering or scientific discipline. Fellowships are a one-year opportunity (September to August). An orientation will be provided through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). A stipend of $45,000 will be provided. Deadline for applications is May 1, 2008. More details on the program are available at http://www.ashrae.org/advocacy/page/1227.
