How We Learned Not to Guzzle
By RALPH CAVANAGH, NYT
SAN FRANCISCO — FOR as long as most of us can remember, the nation’s energy news has trended from bad to worse, starting with the oil crises of the 1970s. But today, the good news is that our energy productivity and security are better than they have been in decades.
You’d never know it by listening to those who say our energy security requires construction of the massive Keystone XL pipeline, or a new surge of oil and gas drilling, or a nuclear power renaissance, or all of the above. And while “all of the above” has emerged as the favored national energy policy of both parties, fortunately that is not the focus of President Obama’s promising climate action plan.
He has given top priority instead to our most productive and lowest-cost option: the “energy efficiency resources” that come from getting more out of oil, natural gas and electricity with increasingly efficient equipment and vehicles, used more carefully.
Government data indicate that our energy-saving efforts already have yielded some amazingly good news. Our factories and businesses are producing substantially more products and value with less energy, which goes to the heart of the president’s climate strategy. In fact, energy use in the United States has been dropping since 2007, and last year’s total was below the 1999 level, even though the economy grew by more than 25 percent from 1999 to 2012, adjusted for inflation.
(More here.)
SAN FRANCISCO — FOR as long as most of us can remember, the nation’s energy news has trended from bad to worse, starting with the oil crises of the 1970s. But today, the good news is that our energy productivity and security are better than they have been in decades.
You’d never know it by listening to those who say our energy security requires construction of the massive Keystone XL pipeline, or a new surge of oil and gas drilling, or a nuclear power renaissance, or all of the above. And while “all of the above” has emerged as the favored national energy policy of both parties, fortunately that is not the focus of President Obama’s promising climate action plan.
He has given top priority instead to our most productive and lowest-cost option: the “energy efficiency resources” that come from getting more out of oil, natural gas and electricity with increasingly efficient equipment and vehicles, used more carefully.
Government data indicate that our energy-saving efforts already have yielded some amazingly good news. Our factories and businesses are producing substantially more products and value with less energy, which goes to the heart of the president’s climate strategy. In fact, energy use in the United States has been dropping since 2007, and last year’s total was below the 1999 level, even though the economy grew by more than 25 percent from 1999 to 2012, adjusted for inflation.
(More here.)
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