Ohio is one of many states trying to scale back energy efficiency standards set for utility providers — even though these standards have lowered costs and reduced energy consumption by customers, according to the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.

OMA, the state’s largest manufacturing trade group, is fighting against Republican-led efforts to weaken the laws that require utilities providers help customers use less electricity. The laws set a deadline of 2025 for electric utilities to help their customers reduce consumption by 22 percent. All but one state legislator approved the bill in 2008. The effects were dramatic and immediate; from 2008 to 2009 alone, Ohio electric utilities saved 530,062 megawatt-hours, ten times the prior year’s savings.

First Energy Corp, Ohio’s influential utility company, is seeking to freeze the efficiency standards at 2012 levels, which mandate reductions of .8 percent. The energy giant tried to rally its larger industrial customers against the efficiency standards, claiming they were hurting businesses. While First Energy Corp’s profits have certainly dropped, industrial manufacturers and Ohio consumers alike are enjoying the lower utility bills resulting from greater energy efficiency.

OMA commissioned an analysis of how the standards were working, presenting the findings to the Senate Public Utilities Committee on Tuesday. The analysis found that the total savings for utilities customers have surpassed the cost of implementing the programs. If the efficiency mandate levels are kept intact, Ohioans could save roughly $5.7 billion by 2020. The group has also argued that energy efficiency competes with power plants, keeping power prices lower.

Ohio’s small businesses and other industrial groups also overwhelmingly support the standards, arguing that business owners are now motivated to strive toward more efficient energy use in order to reduce their costs. Even other Ohio power companies, including American Electric Power, Duke Energy of Ohio, and Dayton Power & Electric, have embraced the programs.

On the national level, comparable energy efficiency standards have a long record of success. Yet the Department of Energy recently backed away from these standards for natural gas furnaces, which would have avoided 100 million tons of carbon emissions and reduced consumers’ costs by $10.7 billion.

The industrial sector is historically the biggest energy consumer in the U.S. However, as companies work to reduce their energy use, the industrial sector now accounts for the majority of energy reduction. Manufacturing consumption in the U.S. dropped 17 percent between 2002 and 2010.

Say you wanted to build an industry from the ground up. On a macro level, the research, development, manufacturing, sourcing, distribution, and fueling would require a lot of energy. This is particularly true for energy industries. But the great thing about renewable energy is that it generally requires no fuel and starts to pay for itself as it scales.

Solar photovoltaic production consumed more energy than it produced while it was getting started. The whole industrial process has taken more energy to create than solar PV has produced — and created more greenhouse gases than it prevented — since 2000. However, a study from Stanford University found that in recent years, all the electricity produced by solar panels in the world has become greater than the energy required to produce it. Due to the amazing growth of the industry, it will generate enough energy by 2015 or 2020 to have “paid back” the energy debt accumulated while the industry got on its feet.

The energy cost to produce and install solar has been shrinking, and can be expected to continue doing so. The more the industrial process gets refined, the more the industry will grow.

As investment and technological development have risen sharply with the number of installed panels, the energetic costs of new PV modules have declined. Thinner silicon wafers are now used to make solar cells, less highly refined materials are now used as the silicon feedstock, and less of the costly material is lost in the manufacturing process. Increasingly, the efficiency of solar cells using thin film technologies that rely on earth-abundant materials such as copper, zinc, tin and carbon have the potential for even greater improvements.

In fact, just today First Solar announced it set a world record for a cadmium-telluride module conversion efficiency of 16.1 percent. This comes 6 weeks after the company broke the previous record for cadmium-telluride cell efficiency of 17.3 percent by 1.5 percent to 18.3 percent. In English, this means that thin-film solar panels, which are much cheaper to produce, are getting more and more efficient.

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LED light bulbs are the longest-lasting and most efficient mass-produced light sources to date. And now, they’re also among the most affordable, with some costing less than $10 per bulb — a drastic drop compared to their recent $50 price tag.

They’ll also do anything an incandescent or compact flourescent bulb can do, and more. Last week, the New York Times published a product review of LED bulbs from six manufacturers, several with features such as dimming, changing colors, and pulsing. Four of the bulbs reviewed can be controlled remotely: using an iPhone or Android app, users can control the brightness and colors of Philips Hue bulbs, and Greenwave Solution bulbs come with an online app that users can program according to their schedules — turning off all the lights at night or when they’re away.

The article’s author lauds the benefits of LED light bulbs, and with good reason. Even in 2012, when the bulbs cost closer to $50 instead of $10, an LED bulb saved consumers about $100 over its lifetime compared to an incandescent bulb. LED bulbs save energy — from manufacture to disposal, an LED bulb uses 5 times less energy than an incandescent one.

And LED bulbs are far more efficient than incandescent bulbs and last longer than both incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs, as the NY Times points out:

LEDs last about 25 times as long as incandescents and three times as long as CFLs; we’re talking maybe 25,000 hours of light. Install one today, and you may not own your house, or even live, long enough to see it burn out. (Actually, LED bulbs generally don’t burn out at all; they just get dimmer.) You know how hot incandescent bulbs become. That’s because they convert only 5 to 10 percent of your electricity into light; they waste the rest as heat. LED bulbs are far more efficient. They convert 60 percent of their electricity into light, so they consume far less electricity. You pay less, you pollute less.

LED bulbs have been popular installations in flashlights and Christmas lights for the past few years, but maybe this recent price drop coupled with the high-tech features the bulbs boast of — along with the federal phase-out of some kinds of incandescent bulbs — will help spur more regular household use of LEDs — an important scenario to consider, given that electricity used to power homes, businesses and industry is the highest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss testified before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on Thursday:

Chairman Lamborn, Ranking Member Holt, and members of the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today on “America’s Onshore Energy Resources: Creating Jobs, Securing America, and Lowering Prices.”

Wind, solar, geothermal, efficiency, and other forms of clean energy creates jobs—three times more per dollar of investment compared to oil and gas. These sources are secure—the wind and sun aren’t subject to human disruption. Energy efficiency saves families and businesses money. And renewable fuels are free and shielded from price spikes that occur when fossil-fuel prices rise.

Domestic oil and natural gas are valuable and important commodities. But their production creates fewer jobs compared to renewables. They heavily contribute to climate change, which Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III recently said will “cripple the security environment.” They are vulnerable to sudden price volatility, like the high oil and gasoline prices of this winter. And producing more oil won’t lower gasoline prices.

It is imperative that we continue to invest in energy efficiency and renewable power for jobs, security, and family budgets.

Renewable energy projects on public lands create jobs and improve public health

Clean energy is a critical part of the economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that “In 2010, 3.1 million jobs in the United States were … green goods and services.” The Christian Science Monitor also reported that “the clean-economy sector … includes 2.7 million jobs. The oil and gas industry … has 2.4 million jobs.” Wind and solar industries in particular employ nearly 200,000 people and are expected to grow to nearly 800,000 jobs by 2030.

There are also permits for projects with more than 11,000 megawatts of renewable electricity generation for public lands, enough to power at least 3.8 million homes.These projects will support 13,500 jobs. What’s more, a CAP analysis determined that appropriate public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah could support 34,399 megawatts of wind, solar, and geothermal electricity, enough to power all the homes in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. These projects would create an estimated 34,399 jobs.

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The McLaren P1: 663 pounds of torque on a hybrid engine

Yesterday, EPA released a new report that showed major fuel efficiency gains in American vehicles.

EPA’s annual report that tracks the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States is signaling a significant 1.4 mile per gallon (mpg) increase for 2012 cars and trucks – along with a continued decrease in carbon pollution.

The expected 1.4 mpg improvement in 2012 is based on sales estimates provided to EPA by automakers. EPA’s projections show a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to 374 grams per mile and an increase in average fuel economy to 23.8 mpg. If achieved, these would be among the largest annual improvements since EPA began reporting on fuel economy. These improvements would more than make up for a slight 0.2 mpg decrease in 2011 that resulted primarily from earthquake and tsunami-related disruptions to vehicle manufacturing in Japan. From 2007 to 2012, EPA estimates that CO2 emissions have decreased by 13 percent and fuel economy values have increased by 16 percent.

The report goes on to estimate that from 2007 to 2012, fuel economy increased 16 percent, with a 13 percent decline in carbon dioxide emissions. As Gina McCarthy put it, this saves money at the pump, reduces GhG emissions, and cleans the air.

We can expect the Obama Administration’s National Clean Car Program standards to double increase fuel economy by 2025, saving Americans $1.7 trillion dollars on gasoline. By the end of the program, this works out to $8,000 in savings per vehicle, and 2 million fewer barrels of oil every day.

Last year’s report only included data from vehicles power by gasoline or diesel, while this year’s report has a section on alternative fuels: electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and compressed natural gas. The report also includes corrected estimates following the probe into inflated fuel economy numbers from some automakers.

Some pertinent highlights from the executive summary:

CO2 emission rates and fuel economy values reflect a very favorable multi-year trend, beginning with model year (MY) 2005.

The U.S. personal vehicle market is diversifying, and consumers now have a much broader range of vehicle choices with respect to fuel economy/CO2 emissions performance and powertrain technology. The number of SUV, pickup, minivan, and van models that have combined EPA label values of 20 mpg or more have increased by 71%, from 38 in 2007 to 65 in 2012.

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After a difficult first year in 2011, during which Chevrolet sold a mere 7,671 Volts, sales of the vehicle shot up to a respectable 23,461 car sales for 2012 — driven largely by consumer demand reacting to high gas prices. According to the Washington Post (hat tip to Treehugger) that surge looks likely to continue: General Motors will be upping 2013′s production to 36,000 units.

Able to run on electrical or gasoline power, the Volt — along with other hybrids, electric vehicles, and fuel-efficient cars — has helped boost job growth in the automotive sector in the face of a sluggish economy. This happened despite a storm of right-wing contempt for fuel-efficient automobile technology over the last few years, which focused largely on the Volt as a symbol of President Obama’s (largely successful) attempts to give the American automotive industry a chance to retool itself and get back on its feet.

Since then, overall hybrid sales increased 50 percent in 2012 from the previous model year, sales of plug-in electric vehicles tripled, and GM itself captured 7 percent of the hybrid market — up 2 percent from the year before. And now the company is looking to bulk up its Volt production by 20 percent:

General Motors Co. is planning to build as many as 36,000 Chevrolet Volts and other plug-in hybrids for worldwide delivery this year, 20 percent more than in 2012, two people familiar with the effort said.

GM is planning to build 1,500 to 3,000 of the fuel- efficient vehicles a month, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified because the target isn’t public. GM sold about 30,000 Volt and similar Opel Ampera cars globally in 2012, said Jim Cain, a company spokesman, who declined to give a target for this year.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson has struggled to compete against more successful alternative-power vehicles such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius. The CEO originally touted the Volt’s gasoline-and-electric system as the technology of the future and forecast global Volt sales of 60,000 in 2012, before settling for half that amount.

The 36,000 target is “probably a doable number,” Jim Hall, principal of consultancy 2953 Analytics, said. “It will have a full calendar year in Europe” and GM will probably sell more this year now that the Volt is eligible for the car-pool lane in California, he said.

Admittedly, these numbers remain behind GM’s previous hoped-for targets. It still lags Toyota, which boosted its hybrid sales 70 percent in 2012 over the previous model year, dominating the market with 892,519 sales of its various Prius hybrid models worldwide. The Prius starts at $24,200 — and a subcompact Prius model sells for $19,080 — which undercuts GM’s $39,145 four-seat Volt.

So good news for electric and hybrid cars as a whole, and thus for fuel efficiency and the environment. But less so for the Volt itself.

Still, the Chevy Volt has several factors going in its favor. It was selected as 2011′s North American Car of the Year — with 92 percent of those surveyed telling Consumer Reports they would buy open again. Meanwhile, fuel standards are set to require 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, technological moves on the horizon promise to make the car’s lithium ion battery technology lighter and more efficient, and there’s every reason to think high gas prices are here to stay.

The price of solar photovoltaics (PV) modules continue to decline.

Dan Lashof via NRDC’s Switchboard

Last July I published an issue brief called Closer than You Think, pointing out that U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2011 were lower than many people realized—about 9 percent below their 2005/2007 peak—putting President Obama’s 17-percent-below -2005-levels reduction target within reach. Since then recognition that U.S. emissions have been falling has become more widespread. In October, Dallas Burtraw and Matthew Woerman at Resources for the Future argued that the U.S. is “on course” to achieving a 16.3 percent reduction by 2020. Last week the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) released a report documenting the rapid growth in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and natural gas generation over the last few years and estimating that U.S. 2012 carbon dioxide emissions were almost 13 percent below 2005 levels. This week the World Resources Institute released an analysis asking “Can The U.S. Get There From Here?” and senior associate Nicholas Bianco said “The U.S. is not yet on track to hit its 17 percent target.”

So are we there yet or what? The apparent dispute between WRI and RFF is largely semantic, of the glass-is-half-full v. half-empty kind. The RFF report actually showed that the U.S. is only “on course” if the EPA does its job of setting global warming pollution standards for power plants and several other categories of stationary sources which it had examined in an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking back in July 2008. EPA has set standards for mobile sources and proposed a standard for new power plants, but stationary source standards that will have a big impact on emissions, particularly standards for existing power plants, remain a work in progress. WRI, for its part, noted that the 2020 target is achievable using existing tools if the federal government takes an ambitious “go getter” approach. WRI finds that 90 percent of the reductions needed by 2020 can come from four measures: carbon pollution standards for existing power plants; phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs); reducing methane emissions from oil and gas production and distribution; and increasing energy efficiency standards for appliances and other energy-using equipment. Even if federal standards end up being “middle of the road,” WRI finds that the 2020 target could still be attained if states adopt more aggressive “go getter” policies.

How realistic is it to think we can achieve the emission reductions in WRI’s “go-getter” scenario? Here is where the BCSE/BNEF report helps, with more than one-hundred figures that paint a picture of the major changes underway in America’s energy system that have already achieved about three-quarters of the targeted reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. (Note that the WRI and RFF reports look at reducing total global warming pollution by 17 percent, which is a somewhat more challenging task, given projected growth in the non-CO2 gases which account for about 20 percent of the total). The BCSE/BNEF report highlights the recent dramatic growth in three major technologies: energy efficiency, renewables, and natural gas. (The report misleadingly labels these collectively as “sustainable” energy, when natural gas, while cleaner-burning than other fossil fuels, is by definition not sustainable). Let’s take a look at each of these technologies in turn.

Energy efficiency

The data presented in the BCSE/BNEF report show clearly that energy efficiency has been the energy policy success story of the last 30 years. Since 1970 total natural gas used in our homes has remained essentially flat while the number of households has increased by over 70% (Figure 22). In commercial buildings overall energy use per square foot has declined substantially since 1980, while electricity use per square foot has increased slightly, although not nearly as much as you would expect given the huge increase in the number of computers, printers, and servers we now stuff into our offices (Figure 91). There is still plenty of room for improvement. Most large office buildings are now Energy Star certified, but that is not the case with smaller office buildings and other types of commercial buildings, such as stores, schools, and hospitals.

Renewable energy

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By Danielle Baussan

Ten years from now, Super Bowl XLVII will be remembered for several reasons:

• 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown
• an energized, though unsuccessful, comeback from the 49ers, and
• a record 164.1 million viewers who saw the Superdome lose electricity for 34 minutes.

Super Bowl XLVII’s blackout wasn’t the first outage at a sporting event, but it may be the first time that such a blackout served as a kickoff for conspiracy theories and misleading facts about energy infrastructure. Here’s a ten-yard run through misleading facts that have been attributed to the blackout.

We need more coal!

Entergy’s claim that there was no problem with energy supply wasn’t enough to deter Peabody Energy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gregory Boyce, who stated that, “Without coal, you might as well turn off half the lights not just for our favorite games but also for our cities, shops, factories and homes.” Yet coal use in power plants has dropped from 50 to 36 percent, based on the low cost of natural gas, and the high cost of respiratory problems from its pollution. Coal-powered electric plants are the nation’s top source of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, the primary source of climate change. Power plant emissions also cause smog, which triggers a host of health problems from lung damage, asthma attacks, and chest pain. Boyce’s claims aren’t just wrong—they’re dangerous.

We need to drill more!

Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, said that the Super Bowl outage “helps to perhaps kick-start the debate,” as she released her energy plan blueprint that gives a big boost to increased drilling for oil and gas. “We’ve got this Immaculate Conception theory of energy: It just happens, the lights turn on, it’s the temperature we want, until it’s not,” said the Senator. Oil isn’t generally used for electricity, though natural gas is a significant fuel for power plants. Regardless of what happened at the Super Bowl, an energy plan relying on fossil fuels gives us temperatures we really don’t want, in the form of global warming.

Energy efficiency caused the power outage!

Others tried to blame the Superdome’s 26,000 LED lights for the blackout, despite the fact that energy efficient lights reduce strain on the electrical grid and can help prevent blackouts. This sly finger-pointing was quickly shot down when others noticed that the LED lights were on the outside of the stadium — and did just fine.

Blame it on Beyonce!

Pop stars aren’t often blamed for infrastructure failures, but Beyonce’s high-voltage halftime performance raised theories that the brightly lit show caused an electric demand overload. Not so, says the Superdome’s manager — the performance was lit with generators.

While we haven’t quite discovered the true cause of the outage, this year’s Superbowl has sparked a new kind of Monday morning quarterbacking about energy infrastructure. Let’s hope that by next January, people will stop making the blame game the next “Superbowl shuffle,” end tired plays to promote dirty fossil fuels, and instead make forward passes on energy efficiency, cleaner power, and smart grid reform.

Danielle Baussan is the Associate Director of Government Affairs at the Center for American Progress

Setback Could Set the Stage for Higher Department of Energy Standards

by Kit Kennedy, NRDC, via Switchboard

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has just retreated on important new energy efficiency standards for natural gas furnaces that were scheduled to go into effect in May and would have saved Americans an estimated $10.7 billion in lower heating bills over the next three decades.

By undoing these standards that were supported by manufacturers, consumers and efficiency advocates, states, and many utilities, American households are destined to waste more natural gas and money. In terms of energy, these standards would have saved 31 billion therms of natural gas over the next 30 years – enough to heat 62 million typical U.S. homes for a year. And the standards would have avoided the emission of somewhere between 81 to 130 million metric tons of global warming carbon pollution over the next three decades – that’s equivalent to the pollution generated by thirty or so coal-fired power plants.

Energy efficiency standards require our appliances and heating and cooling systems to operate efficiently while still providing the same or greater level of performance and comfort. DOE’s appliance efficiency program has a long record of success. Unfortunately, sometimes we encounter a setback, which is what happened Friday with the Department of Energy’s action in an ongoing lawsuit. In a motion filed in a legal challenge, DOE asked the court to “vacate” – or undo – these furnace efficiency standards, so that it can go back to the drawing board and redo them from scratch.

Importantly, consumer and low-income consumer groups agree that this is a setback.  “The Department of Energy’s retreat from long overdue natural gas furnace efficiency standards is bad news for consumers. Strong efficiency standards reduce winter heating bills, helping all families but especially those who have the least means to stay warm and save money,” according to National Consumer Law Center attorney Olivia Wein.

DOE couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to turn the clock back on natural gas efficiency. Just last week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration affirmed that 2012 was the hottest year ever in the continental United States, and the destructive impacts of global warming on communities and public health keep adding up, especially in light of Superstorm Sandy. Moreover, concerns over the environmental and public health risks of under-regulated fracking continue to multiply. If DOE succeeds in undoing these standards, it needs to sets things right quickly by setting new furnace efficiency standards at the same or stronger levels.

Here’s the story.

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by Daniel J. Weiss

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was built on “hope and change.” Millions of Americans went to the polls hoping that the federal government would change its approach to many of the nation’s challenges after eight years of retreat, neglect, and inertia under President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. This was particularly true for concerns about providing greater public health protection from climate change and air pollution, while also increasing security of our energy supplies. The Bush administration gave scant attention to these challenges, and instead pursued policies designed by Big Oil and coal companies for their economic benefit—policies that ignored growing threats from climate change.

In December 2008, during President-elect Obama’s transition, the Center for American Progress proposed the “Top 10 Energy and Environment Priorities for the Obama Administration and 111th Congress.” This progressive agenda was designed to protect public health from carbon and mercury air pollution, reduce oil consumption, and simultaneously boost the economic recovery. Four years later the administration accomplished nearly all of these goals despite the worst economy in nearly 80 years and strong opposition from Big Oil, coal, and other energy interests. Unfortunately, the priorities that required congressional action did not occur, though some progress was still made in each of these areas.

Here are brief descriptions of these top 10 energy and environment priorities outlined by CAP in 2008, and their status at the end of President Obama’s first term. Shortly, we will propose the top 10 energy and environment priorities for President Obama’s second term and the 113th Congress.

Let’s look at each of the above priorities in greater detail.

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