In my recent editorial in the Electricity Journal, I argue that many people miss the big picture when looking for the best ways to get more bang for their energy buck. Switching to CFLs or putting more insulation in our homes are hot ticket items that make environmentally-minded consumers feel like they’re making a difference. But the reality is we could do far more to cut global warming emissions if we paid attention to something much more consequential: the way power is actually generated.

Two-thirds of greenhouse emissions come from the production of power and heat. Although the industrial sector by far uses (and wastes) the most energy, efficiency advocates concentrate almost exclusively on homes and commercial offices. But in fact, manufacturing facilities provide the biggest chance to slash emissions while simultaneously reducing energy bills.

Read more about how waste heat recovery and cogeneration would allow our nation’s industrial sector to become far more efficient.

RED Chairman Tom Casten has a new piece in the Chicago Tribune about the need for a sensible energy policy that rewards efficient, clean power generation like energy recycling.

He writes: “The dramatic images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico serve as a stark reminder that America needs to transition to a new clean energy economy… For the last 30 years, I have watched America increase our energy dependence and lose our competitive edge, in part because of a grossly inefficient energy system… Despite its potential to cut energy costs and greenhouse emissions while preserving manufacturing jobs, energy recycling languishes in the U.S. because of outdated and badly misguided energy policies… By enacting meaningful clean energy legislation, the federal government can finally unleash a wave of American innovation, cutting our dependence on fossil fuels while we develop both cleaner and cheaper domestic power.”

Read the full op-ed here.

Photo courtesy of NOAA.

A little shameless self-promotion: I was in DC last month and sat on a panel discussing how the U.S. can promote clean energy (click “next” to get to me). The bottom line is that competition means innovation means efficiency. And that’s the ballgame, right there — because efficiency means cuts in both global warming and energy costs. The concept is pretty simple.

The talk was put together by an excellent organization called the COMPETE Coalition, and my fellow panelists included representatives from FERC, NDN, and the Galvin Electricity Initiative. The consensus: to truly unleash innovation, government needs to set goals for clean energy and energy efficiency and let markets meet the challenge.

“Simply by ramping up our nation’s generation of electricity from underutilized natural gas plants and ramping down our generation from coal, the United States could reduce its total CO2 footprint by 14 to 20 percent tomorrow with no disruption in access to energy services and no new infrastructure investments.” So concludes Sean Casten in the latest issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly. He notes that the congressional proposal to reduce emissions by 17 percent over ten years is “constrained only by its ambition.”

A new coalition wants Congress to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions. Sound like no big deal? Before you start yawning, take note: this coalition isn’t made up of the usual suspects in the environmental movement. This coalition is made up of businesses.

American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE) launched four months ago with a simple goal: to demonstrate the vast amount of business support that exists for climate change legislation. Already, about 2500 businesses in 41 states have signed onto the initiative.

The lesson is that being pro-planet can also be pro-profit. We can’t have sustainable businesses in an unsustainable world. Even better, we can ensure that slashing greenhouse gas emissions reduces energy costs rather than increasing them. All we need is the creativity and political will to undertake real reform.

With the business community starting to holler, the chances for such reform just got better.

Our own Tom Casten will lead a symposium on energy recycling at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Although conventional wisdom assumes that mitigating climate change will raise the cost of energy, this symposium will present a contrary view: that many proven technologies can substantially increase the efficiency of generating heat and power, cutting energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously.

The event is entitled Gray Is the New Green: How Energy Recycling Curbs Both Global Warming and Power Costs. It will take place February 21 at 8:30am in San Diego.

The panelists include several renowned energy experts:

• Tom, who will discuss the economics of clean energy by comparing the costs of 14 clean energy options such as wind, solar, nuclear, and cogeneration. Casten will argue that improving “generation efficiency” has the greatest potential to benefit the economy while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.
• Lester Lave, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and co-director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. He will report on the work of a committee on energy efficiency that he recently chaired for the National Academy of Sciences. Among other things, Lave will report that the U.S. could bring total energy use back to mid-1980s levels simply through energy efficiency.
• Marilyn Brown, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and former leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She will discuss the many policy barriers to energy efficiency and present policy suggestions to help overcome these barriers. Her recommendations will be based on her own research and emphasize the imperative of serving current economic needs without blocking efficiency investments.
• Lawrence Ambs, professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and co-director of the Northeast Regional Combined Heat & Power Application Center. He will serve as the symposium’s discussant, or moderator.

Those who are familiar with RED’s work know the basic contours of Tom’s argument, which is this. The U.S. energy system is grossly inefficient. The typical power plant throws away two-thirds of its energy, largely in the form of waste heat, when producing electricity. This abysmal rate, while tragic, presents an opportunity: increasing the efficiency of our energy system would help enable us to stave off the catastrophic effects of climate change while increasing national income and improving the quality of life.

Tom has never before presented to the AAAS, so this is an exciting opportunity.

Melissa Mullarkey, a public policy associate here at RED, argues in Trends that capturing waste energy would help the U.S. transition into a carbon-free future. Yes, we eventually need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels entirely. But that can’t happen overnight.

In the meantime, we have to start making big reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions so we can avoid the worst effects of catastrophic climate change. Energy efficiency, Melissa says—especially through technologies like combined heat and power (aka cogeneration)—is the best way to get here.

In the latest issue of The Nation, Lisa Margonelli makes the case for increased use of “gray power” sources, especially waste heat, across the Midwest and South. Calling these regions “the Colossus of Carbon,” she cites a RED analysis revealing the immense amounts of electricity that could be generated from waste energy at manufacturing plants in places like Ohio. “All those smokestacks,” she says, “hold the potential for a lower-carbon renaissance.”

The nature of the magazine publishing this piece bears reflection. The Nation, the journalistic standard-bearer of American progressivism, is extolling the virtues of energy recycling about two weeks after Chief Executive, one of the country’s ultimate capitalist publications, has done the same. Two publications with very different views of the world are coming to similar conclusions on one issue, at least: that by generating energy more efficiently, we can fight global warming while bolstering the economy.

These two magazines aren’t the only unlikely pairs to point out the benefits of this work. The moderate-liberal New Republic has highlighted the potential of energy recycling, as has the business-friendly Forbes. So have the libertarian Lynne Kiesling and the environmental lion Al Gore. So, indeed, have apolitical science outlets ranging from Nature to Orion to American Scientist.

I recite this list not simply to advertise good writing about the issues near and dear to my heart, though there is that. My point is that energy recycling is an issue that could transcend our nation’s partisan divide and provide a path forward on finally tackling climate change. It’s not the only solution. But it’s a big one. It’s what makes the RED team get up in the morning. And I believe it’s an idea whose time has come.