Sandra Stewart | November 10, 2014
Why doesn’t energy efficiency excite people as much as a Tesla roadster? On the face of it, duh. It’s the brains of it that make it a head-scratcher.
An American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) report released earlier this month ranked the U.S. among the least energy efficient of the world’s largest economies, at 13th overall. (Get the details in Climate Central’s summary.) This despite the fact that earlier ACEEE research found that economic data and the historical record suggest energy efficiency investments “can provide up to one-half of the needed greenhouse gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050″ and “Investments in more energy-productive technologies can also lead to a substantial net energy bill savings for the consumer and for the nation’s businesses.” According to NRDC’s annual energy report, released in October, efficiency contributes more than any other resource toward meeting energy goals, and does so at less expense, saving billions of dollars and preventing millions of tons of carbon emissions.
