Tempting targets for dramatic energy cuts.

• Author: Peirce, Neal
• Position: Commentary

Can we really go "green," to achieve big-time energy saving?

For one solution hidden in plain sight, look outside, any evening, at the streetlight closest to you. Energy-wise, it's probably a Neanderthal--burning significant power dusk to dawn, based on old technology, its glow polluting the night skies.

In just the top 10 U.S. metro areas, the 4.4 million streetlights each year burn roughly 3 billion kilowatts of power, sending 2.3 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

But the kilowatts, the carbon emissions, and the dollar costs to local governments could be cut in half. That's the claim of Robert Grow, director of government relations for the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

Grow's prescription: Replace all of today's sodium vapor and other older streetlights with the latest light-emitting diodes (LEDs).The payoff for our cities and suburbs: daily energy use, dollar outlays, and carbon emissions would fall dramatically; the LED bulbs would last far longer than current models; and the light could be directional, lowering light pollution in populated areas.

In fact, based on a system now being installed in Oslo, Norway, Internet servers connected to an LED network can log and report energy consumption, collect information from traffic and weather sensors, calculate the availability of natural sunlight and moonlight, and make constant adjustments for optimal driving or walking conditions.

The LED installations are expensive, but could be paid off by energy savings in roughly five years. The yearly savings for the 10 big metros would be the equivalent of taking 213,000 cars off the roads, or consuming 132 million fewer gallons of gasoline, according to Grow, who is currently on a year's fellowship on regional strategies funded by the Ford Foundation through the American Chamber of Commerce Executives.

Are LEDs a rare exception? No way, I concluded after talking with Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, a major South-Midwest utility Heavily coal-dependent, Duke is the United States' third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and it currently plans at least one major coal and one nuclear power plant to meet growing demand for electricity.

But Rogers' goal is to "de-carbonize" Duke's supply, not only through solar and wind power (which he expects to fall dramatically in price), but by a radical rewriting of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm's mission. Today, he notes, utilities run on a "commodity" model--central power stations...