The National Research Council in October released an important report that calculates the “hidden” costs — such as health injuries from air pollution — from the production of electricity and gasoline. Since these costs don’t show up in the price of power, generators continue to pollute, and you and I get stuck with the medical bills.

As senators and diplomats struggle mightily on climate change legislation and treaties, consider that the U.S. could cut its total CO2 footprint by 20 percent without investing in any new infrastructure or disrupting our access to energy services.

Sean Casten writes, “The Waxman-Markey proposal to reduce CO2 emissions by 17 percent over ten years is constrained only by its ambition.”

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory released its CHP report in December 2008, but it’s worth reviewing again. CHP, it says, helps the United States enhance energy efficiency, ensure environmental quality, promote economic growth, and foster a robust energy infrastructure. Using CHP today, the U.S. already avoids more than 1.9 quadrillion British thermal units of fuel consumption and 248 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, enough to remove more than 45 million cars from the road.

Last night, Tom Casten received the prestigious Platts Lifetime Achievement Award for his work creating ultra-efficient energy systems in the U.S.

“As the founder and president of several energy companies, Casten has succeeded since 1975 in simultaneously slashing power costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and as an author and the founder of numerous advocacy groups, he has precipitated policy changes that have advanced industrial energy recycling and efficiency,” Platts noted in announcing the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed at the 2009 Platts Global Energy Awards.

Sean Casten, in a Grist post, explains that the Department of Energy failed to fund $9 billion of shovel-ready, clean-energy projects. No doubt it’s great news that DOE provided nine projects with a total of $150 million — and that those investments will bring forth an additional $634 million of private capital and saving 14 trillion Btus. Yet left on the table is a massive opportunity to create jobs, lower energy use, and turn the economy around. Let’s hope Congress provides more funding for such CHP, recycled energy, and district energy projects in a pending jobs bill.