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TechnoratiLast year, Americans spent more greenbacks on oil than any other nation - about $517 billion, according to the Energy Information Administration. But we've failed to lead in developing green energy, and that's going to cost us even more.
Historically, we've treated renewable energy and energy efficiency as virtuous, feel-good projects rather than shrewd investments in the industries of the future. It shows: We now trail China and Germany in renewable-power production and lag behind Japan and most of Europe in energy productivity. Worse, we may be missing out on the green gold rush of the century: The market for green energy is set to quadruple in the next eight years, according to the research firm Clean Edge.
Of course, the United States can catch up (and reduce smog, carbon dioxide emissions and geopolitical hassles while we're at it), but we'll need to start treating green energy as a source of jobs, cash and national influence. That means supporting it like a real energy industry - with a vigorous mix of diplomacy, laws and incentives - and dispelling some key myths.
1. "Green energy" is better at sponging up subsidies than creating jobs.
Not so, though Washington certainly now views environmentally responsible energy production as yet another way to pump subsidies to constituencies as diverse as corn farmers and Prius owners. That cavalier attitude is costing us a shot at future markets, which may mean the next generation of U.S. jobs.
Take concentrated solar energy - which uses massive lenses and mirrors to "concentrate" the sun's rays to quickly produce cheap electricity. It has the potential to become a $20 billion industry over the next five years, but the United States is in danger of losing its lead here to Spain, which has established 25-year production incentives designed to spur a competitive industry. Germany, using similar incentives, has already created 35,000 to 40,000 jobs in solar power, according to Emerging Energy Research.
2. There are no gushers left in the United States, so we have to look overseas for energy.
Not so. Even though the U.S. famously has only 3 percent of the world's crude oil reserves, we still have access to gushers of fuel savings. But U.S. energy policies - such as the recent law begging automakers to reach a 35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2020 - remain too timid to make the U.S. a world leader. (China has already mandated 36 mpg standards by this year.)
The U.S. military has been far smarter on this score. It's already started a greenish gold rush simply by announcing its intention to replace half the jet fuel it uses with nonpetroleum fuels by 2016.
Other potential gushers lurk in unexpected places. Cambridge, Mass., has a five-year plan to reduce power consumption by 15 percent, according to the Kendall Foundation, an environmental grantmaker. Skip Laitner, an economist at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, notes that paying bills online saves more than just stamps; if everyone did it, we'd save enough energy to power 150,000 homes. In 1879, Congress created the U.S. Geological Survey to map the country's resources; today, we should ask the National Academy of Sciences to map new sources of energy.
3. "Green power" can't deliver the volume of energy we need.
U.S. electrical generators lose more heat energy than Japan uses to run its entire economy, which raises the question of whether we need as much energy as we think we do. Anyway, simply recycling waste energy from industry and farming could supply nearly 20 percent of U.S. electrical needs, according to a 2005 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Landmark legislation in the past, such as the 1862 Homestead Act and the 1933 act that created the Tennessee Valley Authority, has used federal resources to spur development. A similar plan for wind, solar and geothermal power on public lands in the Southwest could produce as much electricity as 75 to 100 coal plants, says Bob Epstein, a co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs.
4. Americans are comfortable paying more than $3 for gas.
Actually, we don't understand gas's hidden costs. Studies have shown a few Americans know how much they spend each month on gas at the pump, but no one has any idea how much we pay for the stuff each April 15. Milton Copulos of the National Defense Council Foundation figures we fork over a stunning $10.07 per gallon in extra costs, including 51 cents for asthma treatment, $1.21 for pollution abatement, $1.39 for defense expenditures and $5.19 for economic costs - and that doesn't include the long-haul costs of dealing with greenhouse gases.
The true costs could be far lower, but surely it's time to get some good estimates and print them on gas pumps, receipts and billboards. If this sounds a lot like the surgeon general's warning on cigarettes, it is. We use gas with the same unconscious abandon that 1960s smokers used cigarettes as diet aids.
5. The stock market rewards companies that use energy efficiently and punishes those that don't.
It'd be nice to think so, but publicly traded companies don't have to tell anyone how much energy they or their products consume. A study last year by Calvert (an investment firm) and Ceres (a coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups) found that more than half of the Fortune 500 companies did a poor job of disclosing the risks climate change poses to their businesses. I suspect this will soon change.
Lisa Margonelli, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of "Oil on the Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank."
© Copyright 1996-2008 The Washington Post Company
26 Comments so far
Show AllIf it indeed has only 3% of the world's crude oil reserves, the US should be looking to making the changeover to other forms of energy - solar, battery, wind - as fast as it can. Instead, in spite of its much vaunted technological advancement, the US is allowing other nations to get ahead in fields that may well be way the future is headed.
With a maximum limit of 70 mph (112 km) on US highways, I don't see the need for vehicles having more than 150 bhp. Very few Americans do any serious off road driving and monster SUVs with 300+ bhp are just a burden on one's pocket and a drain on US oil reserves.
I agree, but I suppose not as profitable as coal, uranium and oil, and therefore not interesting to those who have the resources to change the energy direction.
Davidvan Wyk; In my post near the top, I mentioned the geothermal power usage by Iceland. Their whole array of green renewable sources of energy is quite impressive.
I am amazed how in all the debates about clean energy no one in this forum have mentioned the completely green and sustainable geothermal power?
PJD; I admire you, I really do. Public transportation needs to be increased in the U.S.
Andrewr; Nothing like a good chuckle before bedtime. I like what you said. How about grounding the ones flying over Iraq and Afghanistan right away?
Just get rid of the US Air Force by 2011 - that would help even more!
Yaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!
Telling it like it is!!
Get off the fossil fuels, don't be fossil fools.
The above article states: "The U.S. military has been far smarter on this score. It's already started a greenish gold rush simply by announcing its intention to replace half the jet fuel it uses with nonpetroleum fuels by 2016." This brings a very chilling possibility to mind: suppose the U.S military starts deploying food-based fuels which then cause 3rd world economies to lose the capacity to feed their own populations so that U.S. weapon systems can be carted about or fueled? The rise in corn prices is perhaps the beginning of a very inhuman outcome. Soylent Green II?
I never had to clean snow or ice off a car for 7 years. The job was downtown and a bus went there every 12 minutes.
People need to work harder at finding jobs and shopping that if not walkable or bikable, are at least accessable to public transit. When I got laid off from the downtown job, I refused to consider any employer and home location that didn't have access by public transit. For the new job it is only one bus in and out a day, so I opted to do teh 5.5 mile commuyte by electric scooter for 8-9 months out of the year. If everyone started making transit access a seious consideration when job and house hunting, the employers and sprawl-developers would be forces to radically change their plans.
Many good suggestions above. Unfotunately Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum and the rest spend many, many millions obfuscating and protecting their enormous record setting profitability and their still huge subsidies.
b;itzin
The temperature has not been above 20F in a month.
Today we saw the road beneath the ice for the second time in 45days.
There is about 2 feet of snow on the sidewalk.
Perhaps you are a braver man than I.
"Of course, the United States can catch up (and reduce smog, carbon dioxide emissions and geopolitical hassles while we're at it), but we'll need to start treating green energy as a source of jobs, cash and national influence. That means supporting it like a real energy industry - with a vigorous mix of diplomacy, laws and incentives - and dispelling some key myths."
Agreed. However, what we've seen here in the US is industry stifling every attempt at alternative, democratic, distributed electrical energy. They do this, of course, by means of lobbying and payoffs to politicians.
This is something that we are going to have to do as individuals. While the technology for alternative energy isn't what it would be had it the right amount of support from the government, we must pick up the slack wherever possible and help this vital industry.
I wish I could say that voting for Obama would be a vote for alternatives, but it may not be. From the NYT:
"Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama's campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers."
http://tinyurl.com/yoqzbr
Hey,
The US is green.
Our cars only cost us $15,000, 79 dead Iraqi, and 1 dead or wounded US soldier for every 100,000 miles. What a deal!
All this and our oil companies are making billions of dollars profit.
What's not to like?
The localizing of electric power production using renewables seems to be a perpetually popular notion here on CD. But in reality, if wind or solar are going to be practical, a much more robust, centrally, controlled grid will be needed to get the power from where the wind is blowing to where it is not, and from the relatively limited areas where wind and solar resources are abundant, to where they are not (like where I live).
This whole "every man for himself" solution to environmental problems is all-too a typical American attitude that needs to be re-evaluated. There is nothing wrong with bigness in organizations if it is democratic.
And ZPV, in lieu of a Segway, which isn't street-legal, and not fast enough at any rate, you may want to consider one of a number of electric motor scooters that are available or are coming available.
As a device that is specifically designed to replace walking, and is only legal and usable on sidewalks and walkways (through sneaky city ordnances that Segway pushed through every city council), I find the Segway to be a classic example of "inappropriate technology". Most of the time, they can't go faster than a brisk walk without rude impositions on other users of the sidewalk. So, why not just walk?
Relatively low-tech storage of summer solar energy for heating in the winter is possible for many people and/or communities ...
www.dlsc.ca/
and I've figured out what to do with those free Compact Disks that all the magazines have been sending me over the years ...
http://www.ida.net/users/tetonsl/solar/solarhom.htm
The US Regime is CRIMINAL!
WASHINGTON (February 4, 2008) -- The Bush administration's just-released $3.1-trillion budget flies in the face of common sense in solving America's energy crisis, according to energy and policy experts at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The same pen that slashed investments in energy efficiency and renewables by 28 percent ups the giveaways to outdated dirty energy like nuclear power, conventional coal, and oil.
Symbolic of the abandonment of energy efficiency is the zeroing-out of the budget of the Weatherization Assistance Program, which the Department of Energy itself calls "this country's longest running, and perhaps most successful energy efficiency program." In FY06, DOE weatherized 97,000 homes. Last year, only 55,000 homes. Now it will go to zero.
The following is a statement from David Goldstein, PhD, energy efficiency expert and co-director of NRDC's energy program:
"The president's budget not only misplaces our nation's energy priorities, it also works against the economic stimulus that the president is otherwise advocating. Weatherization is one of the very few programs where federal spending today produces jobs where they are needed tomorrow, and it puts spending money in consumers' pockets the very next month - as well as every month thereafter without further depleting the Treasury.
"Meanwhile, the renewable energy industries have already noted that reductions in government investments in renewables leads to layoffs immediately."
Source: Natural Resources Defense Council
Falling behind in green energy? How about falling behind in EVERY area of development. Catch up? Dream on. There are too many areas in which the US lags behind for it to catch up, especially since the US is broke and still spending on wasteful wars. The US will never catch up, it will be left behind, indeed it is already the case. The US has had marvelous opportunities to capitalize on its advantages. It did not. Now it is too late. Like the Spanish, we threw it all away by spending it all. Another Empire fails to learn the lessons of history and goes down in flames. Bye, bye Miss American pie...
Listen people, sure riding, walking, and doing your "best" to conserve is nice and all but none of that will keep sustainability alive. Yes, America is currently losing very badly. But then again, there still is yet one more chance for America to get its shit together. First off, we need to shut down the drug war and allow INDUSTRIAL HEMP into the market. Before we start saying "pot smoker" "recreational uses", "feeling high", "weed", and all other reefer madness bullshit, let's get the facts correct. First of all, hemp is NOT marijuana. Second, yes it can be used to manufacture fuel and no petroleum whatsoever is required. Third, it actually reduces global warming and does not deplete the soil unlike most other so-called bio-fuels. Fourthly, you can grow it almost anywhere be it in a frigid cold area or a hot desert (note, dictators in Africa don't like hemp for this reason alone). Sure, no country has put hemp for the vast 25000 uses but there's no reason for the US to wait. So, you can listen to your Republican and/or DLC fake "progressive/liberal" hacks "lecture" you about the phony "war on drugs" or you can be a winner and stand up for hemp.
Simple Sauce you are so correct. I don't look for government to be an agent of effective and real progressive thoughtful change. Not that it couldn't be - it just won't. Too corrupted, our current crop of professional politicians will do their master's bidding. That is, the folk's that look like them going through that revolving door into business lobbying firms.
Government could, as the author slighly hints, by promoting and encouraging, without using that bugaboo word "regulation," but they won't even do that.
Maybe this course of continuing deterioration in real security for ordinary people (being held hostage by energy) is necessary before enough people really begin to act on their own. Change will come from the bottom up and will disempower many of the wealthy.
ZeroPointField:
You live 3.1 miles from work and you're buying a Segway? Why? Are you moving further away?
Walk.
Or ride a bike!
Perhaps Ms Margonelli could have added myth six, Nuclear energy is just as safe as green alternatives. Allow me to use the example of South Africa.
Nuclear disasters go beyond problems associated with reactors, although these have their fair share of problems as well. The dangers associated with Uranium mining is often ignored, perhaps because much of the mining occurs either on the land of indigenous communities, or in the Third World.
Pelindaba nuclear reactor in South Africa spilled a large amount of radioactive uranium hexafloride into the Crocodile River causing a massive fish die-off.
Uranium and gold mines in the catchment of the same river are also causing uranium flows into streams, dams and rivers. In this area children are born mentally retarded, and physically challenged in cancer ridden communities (Farmers Weekly, 25 February 2008).
The security of the same Pelindaba Reactor was breached twice on the same night in December 2007 by gangsters who wanted to steal the computers in the control room. They surprised the control room manager who was in a compromising situation with his girl friend. This is one of the highest security sites in South Africa (which currently has only two reactors). Someone claiming to be from the National Intelligence Agency who threatened the journalist of the Pretoria News with all sorts of unpleasantries should the story of the theft be published.
Some years ago an environmental NGO breached the site where the waste of this same reactor was dumped. This waste was not fenced properly, there were no guards, no sign posts, not even the most elementary protection of this toxic site.
Uranium is mined in the Third World… now we are also keen to join the nuclear energy club. We have very little security, and enforcing environmental and security controls and regulations seem nigh impossible. That is exactly why we in the Third World should stringently oppose uranium mining and nuclear power. If we cannot even guarantee the security of one nuclear plant how are we going to do so for dozens more?
South Africa could have better utilized the poorly thought through Lesotho Highlands water project to see to all its energy needs… but that would have limited the scope for the enrichment of the new elite. The USA should not cry if some fanatic reaps uranium from South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia or Namibia for purposes of terror against the population of the USA. There is much more to nuclear power than just electricity.
I currently work 3.1 miles from home.
I will be moving soon.
But I will be buying a segway soon. And my second car will be soon be garaged for good.
The application for buildings in the valley never stops increasing
I have said this a dozen times before, and here I go again.
These are 6000sqft plus houses.
They cost $1000 a sq ft.
and there is not a cent spent on making it energy efficient.
The county has just hired someone to look into this whole aspect of building green.
Their current form has some mistakes, and encourages reverse green building.
Obviously the guy making it did not know what he was doing.
There are no added incentives for people to go green.
There are communities that are banning solar panels here because of the way they look.
The "First Green House" is being built currently in the valley.
The republicans in the house and senate have tried to block the extension of benefits provided by DESIRE ( I believe that is acronym).
Using alternate energy means for your house You can easily be self sufficient in energy FOR LIFE with current technologies.
If only more people bought it- it would become cheaper
Green investment alone is not the answer. Green investment must be decentralized to individuals for home conservation of energy, garage inventors, and small businesses. Centralized investment in green dollars to large corporations is the least efficient method of obtaining needed results and also concentrats wealth. Again, both the people and congress are ignorant of the importance of decentralization to more rapidly accomplish energy independence. Unfortunately, stupid cannot be fixed overnight. Learn to help yourselves, this government is not going to make correct decisions.
Ms Margonelli has written a timely article and explained in some detail the 'myths' surrounding green energy. Several weeks ago, I saw a documentary on the remarkable progress Iceland has made towards cleaner sources of energy and the concerted effort in eventually having a 'petroleum free' transportation system, and reliance on geothermal, wind, and solar for public utility plants and home and business use.
Currently, Germany is number one in the use of solar energy, followed by Japan. China is catching on and with the toxic environment from industrial and vehicular emmissions, rapidly turning to these sources of energy.
In this morning's San Francisco Chronicle, a front page story by Chronicle Staff Writer George Raine is about a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 making a test run from London to Amsterdam using a 'biofuel' blend that is cleaner as well as cheaper. The article quotes our Secretary of the Air Force who wants our aircraft to fly on synthetic fuels be 2011. Good article.
Another 'environmentally friendly' article was written by William Kotke, titled, 'Russia To Become An Ecovillage Nation? Dimitry Medvedev who will follow Putin as President of the Russian Federation, wants to give Russian citizens 'dachas' or small tracts of land ( sort of like homesteading ) to farm or start 'cottage-type' businesses: it's the participants choice...for about 10-15,000 rubles ( $300-$400 US dollars ). Three cheers for The Russian Bear!
As for the $3 dollar plus, for a gallon of gas, Greg Palast wrote a nice piece last month about it. That's Bush's way of paying back the Saudis for the money they lent us ( my words- for our imperialistic adventures and the Iraqi Holocaust. )
The city of Paris, France has two million bikes to use for free. Bicycle racks are all over the city. Put a Euro coin in the slot, it unlocks a bike, ride it all day to and fro, and park it in another bike rack if you are in another part of town and get the coin returned.
There are so many options for a cleaner sustainable environment.
It will take leadership to make progress on all of this. Unfortunately, we don't elect leaders, and so end up with the least bad/best of the worst ...and maybe not even that.
It's good to see mention of these ideas in the WaPo. The tricky part of ideas like "let's use the gov't to spur huge investment in efficiency and renewables" is the conflict between reduction in consumption of energy (or anything, for that matter) and the growth-based semi-capitalist economy... Reducing energy use means that investors in energy companies lose money, which means that they're going to lobby the government to slow or halt the decline in energy consumption (see US energy policy since WWII).
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the shift to renewables and reduced consumption tends to decentralize control (and financial gain) in the energy sector, which is politically unpalatable to those whose voices seem to matter most in DC. Hence we see discussion of massive new nuclear plants, new "clean" coal plants, massive wind energy farms, and massive concentrated solar power plants.
The real shift toward sustainability in energy involves home-scale, community-scale changes in design, planning, and implementation of passive and active energy systems. We're talking about designing communities in which transportation happens mostly on foot or mass transit; heating, cooling, and lighting are passive and integrated; and food systems are among the primary sectors of an economy that is transformed to serve local human and environmental needs.
Good luck getting centralized power (political or economic) to move in that direction...