Energy Surprises for the 21st Century.

• Author: Lovins, Amory

Twenty-three years ago Amory Lovins was heavily criticized as wildly optimistic for predicting that energy efficiency would play a major role in shifting United States energy use patterns, thus reducing overall consumption far below official forecasts.(1) He argued that energy would shift in more economically and environmentally benign directions, while energy intensity (primary energy consumed per real dollar of gross domestic product [GDP]) would markedly decrease without threatening continued economic growth.

Today, total U.S. energy use is slightly below the level suggested in Lovins' 1976 "soft energy path"(2) graph (see Figure 1), and in all but five of the intervening years the amount of energy consumed per dollar of GDP has fallen--for a total drop of more than 35 percent since 1973. Renewable energy sources are only now regaining momentum after a decade of federal hostility exemplified by reductions of more than 90 percent in research and development budgets and suppression of public information.(3) Improvements in technology and integrated whole-systems design techniques, as well as greater attention resulting from competitive pressures, are increasing the potential for a "third wave"(4) of energy efficiency, reversing the period of stagnation from 1986 to 1996.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In addition to such oft-discussed trends as fuel price deregulation, electricity restructuring--and, in many countries, privatization of state-owned industries--other less-recognized forces of change are afoot. This article provides an overview of some of the issues and innovations that are likely to alter the global energy sector in the early 21st century From superefficient energy use to the emergence of hydrogen as a viable energy carrier, from climate concerns to security dilemmas, the relationships between these important concepts and the energy industries are as intricate as they are full of potential to promote growth, profits and opportunity

ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ELECTRICITY RESTRUCTURING

Historically, energy resource discussions have focused on supply. But people don't want barrels of oil or kilowatt-hours of electricity per se; they want the services that energy ultimately provides, such as hot showers, cold beer, comfortable buildings, light, torque and mobility Focusing on these desired services, delivered by the end-use application of energy, allows consideration of a broader range of options than simply the energy supplied by the local grid or pipeline. Considered from the demand as well as supply side of the equation, what is the cheapest, cleanest way to deliver each of these services? Often the better, more cost-effective way is using less energy more productively, with smarter technologies. Efficient end-use can thus compete with new supply as an energy resource.

Today harnessing market forces and using widely demonstrated synergistic design, technology and management techniques can deliver the high quality of life available in Western economies at much lower financial and environmental cost. Industry surveys of utility-directed "demand side management" efforts to save electricity show saved watts--or "negawatts"--typically costing in the range of 0.5 to 2.5 cents per saved kilowatt-hour, with well-run industrial and commercial programs usually falling toward the low end of that range.(5) While scores of specific market and regulatory barriers prevent fuller realization of efficiency's potential, clever firms are finding ways to turn these obstacles into business opportunities.(6) They would be able to do so far faster and more thoroughly if simple, high-leverage reforms in public policy rewarded least-cost results, such as rewarding electric distribution utilities for minimizing the cost of energy services rather the price of kilowatt-hours.(7)

In the short run, the restructuring of segments of the U.S. electricity sector could unfortunately shift the focus away from efficient outcomes and back toward the sale of bulk electricity as a cheap commodity. Such restructuring is often intended simply to replace the equitable sharing of the cheapest power with a "big dogs eat first" principle. But it will yield surprisingly small benefits even to those major customers unless retail distributors are rewarded for cutting all customers' bills rather than for selling them more energy.(8) Otherwise, the modest benefit of more competitive generation is achieved in a way that sacrifices the much larger benefit of efficient end-use. Moreover, regardless of such restructuring, utilities too are discovering that they can't compete unless they help their customers wring more work from each kilowatt-hour--since that's the only effective way to deliver better service and lower bills. The more competition is introduced, the truer this becomes, because efficient end-use becomes the key to differentiating among different suppliers' almost identically priced kilowatt-hours.

Much of the currently fashionable restructuring is even harming efforts to harness energy efficiency, renewable sources and the distributed utility (as described below). End-use efficiency is the most important source of cost-effective displacement of central thermal power stations. Demonstrated and widely applicable efficiency improvements usually cost less than just operating a thermal power station, even if constructing one and delivering its power were to cost nothing.(9) Efficient use becomes even more powerful when synergistically combined with decentralized, modular electricity production at a scale of kilowatts and megawatts; renewable resources in particular; and local energy storage. These approaches should rebound as competitive restructuring progresses, if its design fosters competition rather than reinforcing incumbents. Energy efficiency and distributed power generation will increasingly be bought for reasons other than saving commodity costs--respectively to yield qualitatively superior services and distributed benefits--and will therefore become increasingly unpredictable using economic tools and experience. For example, the 6 to 16 percent labor productivity gains in efficient buildings, due to their superior visual, acoustic and thermal comfort, are typically worth at least ten times more than the energy savings themselves.(10) But they are absent from all economic models of whether building proprietors will improve their energy efficiency.

The ability to respond to price is more important than price itself. Price matters, but its policy importance has been much overrated. High energy prices are neither necessary nor sufficient for very efficient use of energy. Seattle pays roughly half the electricity prices of Chicago, yet in the 1990s it has been saving electricity twice as fast as Chicago. Seattle's City Light municipal utility helps its customers and utilities to save energy by making an efficient, effective, informed market in negawatts, while Chicago's Commonwealth Edison has historically tended to discourage more than encourage such savings through tariff structures, direct promotion and other means. If, as preliminary data suggest, the United States has resumed since 1997--a period of record-low energy prices--the rapid pace of energy savings that it last enjoyed at record-high prices, this would further confirm that price is not the only way to focus attention or influence choice.

WHOLE-SYSTEM DESIGN FOR EFFICIENCY

Large, quick-payback energy savings can often yield after-tax returns of more than 100 percent per year, even at or below today's low U.S. energy prices. These energy-saving opportunities are getting bigger and cheaper all the time. Despite this, after saving $150 to $200 billion worth of U.S. energy use per year (compared with 1973 efficiency levels), the United States is still wasting upwards of $300 billion a year, and that waste is climbing.(11) The result is a growing reservoir of energy available for other uses, but not yet freed up by more efficient use. End-use efficiency is a rapidly expanding resource, as we are learning new ways to achieve such efficiency faster than the resource is being tapped.

Whole-system design techniques offer some of the most significant savings opportunities. Inventor Edwin Land once remarked that "people who seem to have had a new idea have often simply stopped having an old idea." This is particularly true when designing systems for resource savings. The old idea is one of diminishing returns--that the greater the resource saving, the higher the cost. But that old idea is giving way to the new idea that bigger savings can cost less: that saving a large fraction of resources can actually cost less than saving a small fraction of resources (or, for that matter, saving nothing).

Interface Corporation, the leading maker of materials for commercial interiors, applied such an approach to a standard "pumping loop" (a common feature in many factories and most large buildings) in its new Shanghai carpet factor. A top European company had designed the system to use pumps requiring a total of 95 horsepower. But before construction began, Jan Schilham, a Dutch engineer at Interface, realized that two embarrassingly simple design changes would cut that power requirement to only 7 horsepower--a 92...