03 April 2009
About This Issue
Energy. Environment. Economics. All three forces contribute to standard of living and quality of life, and it has been true since the earliest humans learned to make fire and coax crops from the ground. The need to maintain a careful equilibrium among the three has taken on a new urgency in the 21st century. The carbon-based fuels that have fired productivity since the Industrial Age are dwindling in supply, changing the atmosphere, and contributing to climate change.
Development of clean, renewable energy sources to replace carbon-based fuels on a massive scale is underway on many fronts. Until these efforts identify means for large-scale production and distribution of alternative energy, efficient use of existing supplies is widely acknowledged as the fastest, cheapest, and cleanest way to meet future energy needs.
Squeezing greater productivity from current energy consumption requires no increase in energy generation. In that way, efficiency costs less and is more readily available than any other form of production. With no increase in emissions, efficiency is also the cleanest source of energy.
Globally, the anticipated growth in energy demand is on an unsustainable course, and energy efficiency and conservation will play a key role in slowing that growth.
The United States has a strong record on tapping efficiency as a resource. The energy consumed to produce a dollar’s worth of national output of goods and services has declined by more than 50 percent since 1970, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Further efficiency gains can yield even greater results, and on these pages you’ll find some of the many strategies that individuals, organizations, and governments are using to achieve that goal.
A national plan for greater efficiency involves all the players in the nation’s complex energy production and regulatory system, and in this journal, officials describe its goals. ENERGYSTAR®, a cooperative initiative of industry, government, and consumers, boosts efficiency in homes and business nationally and internationally. Local governments also look abroad and learn from European efficiency. Consumers embrace the efficiency ethic in creative ways, and build awareness in their communities. And experts with a global view explain how differing cultural norms can influence the effectiveness of efficiency strategies.
The Obama administration boosted government spending on efficiency programs by almost $17 billion in the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year, further affirmation of the national imperative to tap the resource of energy efficiency.
--The Editors
