Energy Efficiency: legacy and future

The impact of energy efficiency on our economy is so vastly underrated. Last week someone on National Public Radio mentioned that the American economy uses less than half the energy per dollar of GDP as it used in 1970. We make more wealth with less waste! What a great trend this is! But how many people know or care? I decided to search for more information on this.

I found the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy had a report on this subject and here is what they said.

It’s the U.S. energy boom that no one knows about. Energy efficiency may be the farthest-reaching, least-polluting, and fastest-growing energy success story of the last 50 years. But it also is the most invisible, the least understood, and in serious danger of missing out on needed future investments.

It is must be because efficiency is so unglamorous and boring. They go on.

Given the right choices and investments in the many cost-effective but underutilized energy efficiency technologies, the United States can cost-effectively reduce energy consumption by an additional 25-30% or more over the course of the next 20-25 years.

source THE “INVISIBLE” U.S. ENERGY EFFICIENCY BOOM

Maybe there is gold in them thar pipes and ducts. As engineer, I will continue designing buildings to absolutely beat the ASHRAE energy efficiency standards by 20-30-50%. The dollar value of the efficiency improvemants can only rise as the cost of energy (blame the over-dependency on fossil fuels ) rises. The ACEEE report, however, warns that the investors and policy folks may miss this golden opportunity. Additional jobs and productivity gains worth tens of
$billions/year are on the line.

In other news:

Pumping systems account for nearly 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25% to 50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities.

– U.S. Department of Energy and the Hydraulic Institute

Mostly drinking water and wastewater I suppose, but a lot of that is for crude oil, diesel and gasoline too, not to mention paper mills, power generation plants and what not.

Coincidentally, pump energy accounts for a huge percentage of power for air conditioning large buildings. Not so coincidentally, reducing the chilled water flow rates is a key method of reducing cooling energy use in buildings, which I heartily embrace in my work. Lower chilled water flow rates make for SMALLER pumps and pipes and that IS BEAUTIFUL!