When the colonists of Virginia depleted their cropland, they relocated westward. When prospectors found gold in the Rockies, they rushed to exploit it without a thought to the environment. There is no Wild West anymore. As it becomes increasingly clear that our energy supply is finite and unpredictable, the United States must make a clean break from its history of squandering resources. To brainstorm an action plan, DISCOVER teamed up with the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to sponsor a series of briefings on Capitol Hill. Eight leading thinkers offered visions of how to make our energy supply cleaner, more efficient, and more abundant (for video, check out the event homepage). Here is their expert analysis.

1. EMBRACE RADICAL EFFICIENCY

Plan of Action  Make our economy more productive by using energy more intelligently. A stunning 57 percent of our energy ends up wasted, according to James D. McCalley, electrical and computer engineer at Iowa State University. Investing in energy efficiency would be equivalent to tapping an entirely new source of energy. “If you green the electrical system and then electrify the transportation system, you also have a very good start to the solution to our global warming problems,” McCalley says.

The Science  Residential and commercial energy consumption accounts for 72 percent of all electricity and 13 percent of all fossil fuels consumed in this country, says Vivian Loftness, an architect at Carnegie Mellon University. That means buildings offer huge potential for energy savings. Natural daylight can replace 30 to 60 percent of our current energy consumption for lighting, natural ventilation can reduce the energy used for air-conditioning by 20 to 40 percent, and better use of natural shading could cut another 10 percent. Passive solar heating eliminates 20 to 40 percent of heating costs.

“Conservation is a new supply. As long as it’s relegated to the far end of the equation, we’re never going to get to where we need to go,” Loftness says. More stringent energy regulations could save 50 to 75 percent of the cost of running appliances and equipment. Some urban planning, modest transportation initiatives, and better application of off-the-shelf technologies could also drastically cut fuel use. For instance, refrigerators today consume about 75 percent less energy than they did in 1972 due to federal and state efficiency standards.

The Policy  Loftness and others recommend that the federal government encourage efficiency through tax incentives and stricter standards for appliances, vehicles, and buildings to meet the goals of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. That Senate bill sets a goal to reduce emissions by 83 percent from 2005 levels by 2050 and requires electricity suppliers to use renewables and electricity-saving measures for 20 percent of their demand by 2020. According to Lowell Ungar, director of the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, D.C., stronger building codes that would improve insulation, heating and cooling, and lighting could reduce building energy demand by 6 to 7 percent by 2030. “Buildings use about two-fifths of the energy and are responsible for about two-fifths of the carbon in this country. Building codes are the essential policy tools here,” he says.

The government could also help by promoting consumer education about energy-efficiency options and by broadening the labeling of consumer products to show the energy costs of using such products, as is done now with the EnergyStar program. It should encourage urban infill, in which underused parts of our cities (instead of areas on the fringes) are redeveloped for business and residential use. This would help curtail suburban sprawl and the associated auto miles traveled while also making our cities more compact and walkable.

In 2005, residents of Portland, Oregon—where regulations encourage infill development—emitted 35 percent less carbon dioxide than the average resident of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. Loftness estimates that infill development could cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 240 million metric tons. It could reduce vehicle miles traveled by 30 percent by 2050, other studies have found. Encouraging greater investment in—and use of—mass transit would also help improve efficiency, as would carbon cap-and-trade legislation.

Energy Sources

The breakdown of energy sources in the United States (measured in quadrillion Btu), according to the Energy Information Administration. More than four-fifths of the country’s energy comes from fossil fuels; only one percent comes from geothermal, solar, and wind (GS&W). The energy content of all these sources pales in comparison with the losses due to waste during generation, transmission, and use.

2. GIVE THE POWER GRID AN EXTREME MAKOVER

Plan of Action  Rebuild our aging, patchwork electrical grid to reduce losses and improve flexibility. Smart electrical grids and energy storage options would allow utilities to operate more efficiently by helping them manage spikes in the demand for electric power.

The Science  A better energy delivery and storage system will have far-reaching effects on all forms of energy consumption—from transportation to heating. It would eliminate supply and price volatility, level peak loads, increase reliability, and decouple production from demand, thereby making alternative sources like wind and solar more viable. “Renewable energy sources like wind and solar need storage. We can use the grid to decouple the renewable power production from when we want energy. Storage will level the load,” says Ralph Masiello, innovation director of KEMA, a Massachusetts-based energy consulting company.

He describes how Presidio, Texas, found a solution for its energy problem. The town is located at the very end of a long, thin transmission line. Frequent storms would take out the line, causing power outages. The solution in the past was to temporarily connect Presidio to Mexico’s electrical grid until the problem could be fixed. Now the utility has installed a six-megawatt battery at the substation to deliver electricity to the town during outages.

Meanwhile, McCalley from Iowa State University is developing computer models that project how energy supply and demand will change over the next four decades. That analysis, which he calls “infrastructure investment planning,” looks at possible investment strategies and identifies the optimal plans in terms of cost, environmental impact, and resiliency to disturbances.

The Policy  The government should direct funds into initiatives to develop technologies for storing power from traditional and alternative sources on the nation’s grid. Upgrading to high-voltage transmission lines will greatly increase the efficiency of the grid. According to S. Massoud Amin, an electrical and computer engineer at the University of Minnesota, the United States now invests just $4.6 million per gigawatt annually in high-voltage transmission, compared with a $16.5 million investment in England, $12.3 million in Spain, and $22 million in New Zealand. The implications of a smart grid also require study: Who, for instance, would own energy that is put in storage for later use? The battery in Presidio, Masiello says, has proved to be controversial with wind farm developers because the utility buys power from them at night when it is cheap, stores it, and then supplies it to customers during outages, when it is expensive.

Energy Use

The percentage of energy used in the United States by various sectors, according to the Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Energy is wasted in every step of the supply chain. For example, light-duty vehicles convert only 20 percent of the fuel they consume into useful energy. Improving the grid will reduce one major cause of energy loss.