ACEEE PRESS BRIEF
STUDY FINDS U.S. CAN REDUCE
ENERGY USE 25% AND SAVE
CONSUMERS $600 BILLION THROUGH GREATER
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
House-passed Energy Bill Fails to
Deliver These Savings,
Senate to Begin Consideration this
Week
Contact: Steve Nadel of ACEEE
at (202) 429-8873 or Paul
Bledsoe of Fenton Communications at (202) 822-5200
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 10, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new study released today finds that
the United States could reduce its projected energy use by more than
25 percent and save consumers more than $600 billion over the next
two decades simply by adopting nine key energy-efficiency policies.
The study, released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy (ACEEE), identifies nine policies that together could
achieve these savings, including:
- Increase corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for
passenger vehicles;
- Adopt a national system benefit trust fund to improve the
efficiency of electricity use;
- Enact and strengthen energy efficiency standards on several
energy-using products;
- Enact tax incentives for highly efficient vehicles, homes,
commercial buildings, and other products;
- Expand federal energy efficiency research, development, and
deployment programs;
- Promote clean, high-efficiency combined heat and power
systems;
- Set up voluntary agreements and incentives to reduce
industrial energy use;
- Improve the efficiency and reduce the emissions of existing
power plants; and
- Promote greater adoption of advanced building energy codes.
The U.S. Senate begins consideration of national energy policy
legislation this week. The Senate Energy Committee is expected to
vote on the national system benefit trust fund and combined heat and
power provisions later this week, and to vote on appliance
efficiency standards and industrial voluntary programs next week.
CAFE standards and energy tax incentives will be considered by the
Commerce Committee and Finance Committee, respectively, probably
later this month. And power plant emissions standards will be
considered by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,
possibly in October.
“The energy bill passed by the House in early August would
achieve only 2% of the energy savings that could be accomplished
were these policies to be adopted, ” said Steven Nadel, Executive
Director of ACEEE and lead author of the report. “The House bill is
basically a penny-ante bet in a very high stakes game. The Senate
should act much more boldly to fully exploit the potential savings
that energy efficiency offers to the United States.”
The ACEEE researchers estimate that the cost savings due to lower
energy use resulting from the nine policies will be more than twice
the extra cost of the more efficient equipment, producing net
savings of about $600 billion over the next 18 years. Furthermore,
by easing the demand for energy, ACEEE found that efficiency
policies would help reduce energy prices, resulting in substantial
benefits for all consumers. “We found that these policies will
reduce annual U.S. energy expenditures per household by $2093 in
2020, a 33% reduction relative to the business–as-usual scenario in
which essentially no new policies are adopted,” stated Steve Bernow
of the Tellus Institute, whose researchers performed the modeling
for the project.
The study also found that the impact of the efficiency policies
steadily grows over time as the policies affect more decisions and
as more of the existing stock of cars, appliances and industrial
equipment turns over. As a result, the policies reduce the growth in
U.S. energy use over the 2002-2010 period, and total U.S. energy use
declines in the 2010-2020 period. By 2020, energy use falls back to
below 1999 levels. “The efficiency policies will substantially
reduce the need for new energy supplies and new energy
infrastructure, although some of each will still be needed in order
to replace current supplies and infrastructure,” noted Nadel.
Relative to the no-new policy case, with the efficiency policies,
U.S. oil use will be reduced by 19% and natural gas use will be
reduced 23% by 2020. The oil savings will reduce the need for
imported oil by 40% relative to the no-new policy case, helping to
reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil from volatile regions of the
world. However, even with the efficiency policies, oil imports will
still increase modestly relative to current levels.
“These policies will make a substantial contribution towards
bringing U.S. energy supply and energy demand into better balance,
helping to avert the types of supply bottlenecks and energy price
spikes that U.S. consumers have had to face this year,” said Nadel.
“The efficiency savings we have found are far greater than the
amount of oil and gas available in the wilderness areas and wildlife
reserves that the Bush Administration is now trying to open up to
development.”
The efficiency savings will also help to further reduce emissions
of many pollutants now covered by the Clean Air Act, but which would
otherwise continue to cause health and environmental problems at
current and expected levels, and would also reduce emissions of
carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. By 2020, the efficiency
policies will reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 48% relative to
the no-new policy case, primarily due to the retirement of many
dirty old power plants. The policies will also stop the growth in
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, bringing emissions to 1990 levels by
2020. “The efficiency savings will bring us within reach of the
carbon dioxide emissions targets in the Kyoto Protocol,” Nadel said.
“We should be able to meet the Kyoto targets through a combination
of these efficiency policies, policies to promote use of renewable
energy sources, policies to reduce emissions of other greenhouse
gases, and emissions credits purchased from other countries.”
