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The Forum > Article Comments > A source of energy hiding in plain sight > Comments

A source of energy hiding in plain sight : Comments

By Marilyn Brown and Benjamin Sovacool, published 5/3/2009

Efficient use of energy would save money and create jobs.

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Energy efficiency can only help if the reserve capacity thereby gained is not used for further economic growth. Using efficiency gains for economic and population growth is, ultimately, suicidal since it reduces reserve capacity/resilience to zero. Highly efficient systems are not robust! Instead they are very vulnerable to collapse through resource shocks.
Energy efficiency + steady state economy/population = survival
Energy efficiency + growth = suicide.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Thursday, 5 March 2009 8:39:55 AM
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Very very very good point michael.
Posted by Houellebecq, Thursday, 5 March 2009 8:48:22 AM
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Rather than increasing network and generation augmentation, we can unleash extra capacity with a national, accelerated roll-out of interval meters to every home and business, with time of use tariffs.

I have one already, it has been a great thing. A lot of consumers can even save a bit.

It works by getting people to use certain high-load appliances during periods of surplus capacity in the network, therefore reducing peak period strains.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Thursday, 5 March 2009 9:48:47 AM
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The author writes:

"Failure of local and regional agencies to control sprawl, the spreading of suburban areas over rural land, has contributed to growth in vehicle traffic and to energy-inefficient urban systems. The federal government redistributes gasoline tax revenues to states and municipalities based on highway use, doing little to boost public-transit alternatives.

In most states, natural gas and electric utilities face little incentive to promote efficient use of energy by their customers because utility profits are tied to sales. A utility’s rates are typically set based on an estimation of cost of providing services over some period of time, divided by an assumed level of sales over that period. If actual sales are less than projected sales, the utility earns less. Today, profits of most utilities shrink when customers make their homes more efficient by upgrading to Energy Star appliances or generate their own electricity with rooftop solar panels."

Obama can do very little concerning the above. Land zoning and use is largely controlled by the states. Federal law in the United States cannot override state law except in areas determined to be under federal jurisdiction by Constitutional law. Utility pricing and policies are also mainly under state law.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 5 March 2009 10:21:48 AM
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It is not hiding in plain sight. It is at the fore front of existing efforts.

The only way to motivate this is by making carbon more expensive. Everyone will then feel the need to economise.

This would mean that a carbon tax would be far easier to implement and monitor than a cumbersome and inelegant carbon trading scheme. The taxes from this can be used to replace other means such as payroll tax.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 5 March 2009 10:23:56 AM
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A major impediment to increased energy efficiency here is the privatised electricity companies - they want us to use as much as they can provide to boost their bottom line. If we curtail our usage they will go the route of Melbourne water and ramp up service delivery charges so there are no overall savings, which removes the financial incentive to be efficient. Sadly, I can't see any of our governments looking past the possible loss of donations from the carbon energy industry to do anything worthwhile on this front.
Posted by Candide, Thursday, 5 March 2009 10:57:13 AM
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Green industries are more labour intensive and employ between 160 and 260% more people per dollar spent. This is a good thing? This argument flies in the face of millenia of human development and is a recipe for a new dark age. I thought they were talking about energy efficiency. Gotta get back on my bike..
Posted by palimpsest, Thursday, 5 March 2009 4:41:37 PM
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Why is cutting waste http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6964
to cut our emissions in half still not on the radar? Cutting waste in production and waste in use can mean more jobs and businesses http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7994 not less. Spending money to stimulate the economy should be directed to spending on what is needed for our future, to cope with climate change and natural disasters – spending on radical changes as well as modifications in infrastructure, housing, food supply, sustaining the environment, supplementary appliances to use when the big appliances are not needed, such as small cars, not always driving the big cars, more natural childcare, developing solar power, more durable and repairable goods, better salvage . . to be users rather than wasteful consumers. The big energy producers may not need to produce so much energy - can our economy not cope with this?
Posted by ozideas, Thursday, 5 March 2009 5:21:07 PM
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Suggestions for greater activism and more efficient use of electricity are to be commended but, by themselves, will not bring about what is really needed – significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

That will only be achieved with implementation of Obama’s initiative of implementing a cap and trade ETS. This should penalise the worst polluters and uses revenues raised to reduce adverse effects on the economy and fund R&D of technologies aimed at generating competitively priced base-load electricity from renewable sources.

Unless and until a fossil fuel economy is converted into one which sources all of its energy needs from non-polluting sources – and that excludes biofuels - essential reduction of CO2 emissions will simply not be achieved in time to prevent irreversible global warming with catastrophic consequences for the economy and humanity.
Posted by Mike Pope, Friday, 13 March 2009 12:11:08 PM
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