[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/EW-05-19-14-Low-Power-Future.mp3|titles=EW 05-19-14 Low Power Future]
There is a booming business in energy efficiency, including the design and adoption of energy efficient light bulbs, high mileage vehicles, and more effective insulation.
Economists estimate that businesses and governments are spending about $300 billion each year, improving energy efficiency in their operations. As a result, we are now using only 66% of the energy that might otherwise be consumed in the absence of efficiency measures. Improvements in efficiency reduce the need for new power plants, leading to greater savings for consumers and lower pollutant emissions to the environment.
Andrew Friedland is an environmental scientist at Dartmouth College.
“Purchasing energy efficient devices makes complete sense over the long-term. The challenge is to devise innovative techniques or policies or incentives or methods to encourage people or allow people to overcome the upfront cost, which in some cases for certain higher efficiency devices might be quite high.”
Some of the innovations in efficiency are driven by government regulations and some simply by good business sense. When a company spends less money on energy, the savings goes right to the bottom line – it’s profit.
Indeed, it is surprising that some conservative politicians don’t embrace energy efficiency regulations as a conservative, business-minded thing to do. Energy efficiency is a way to get more for less. And as the coming decades unfold, we’ll need to get a lot more from less if we don’t all want to live in poverty.
The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones. Rather, we thought of better ways of doing things.
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Web Extra
Full interview with Andrew Friedland, an environmental scientist at Dartmouth College
[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Friedland_full_web.mp3|titles=Friedland_full_web].
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Photo, taken December 3, 2009, courtesy of Cree LED Lighting via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.