12.+LESS+IS+MORE

=Chapter 12 - Less is more= - Efficiency improvements - Research people have made show that it is virtually inexhaustible - Innovation in effieciency is renewable - Best ideas come from employees at every level when culture of efficiency is infused throughout an organization - Could help increase economy - “The huge cost savings and Co2 reductions from improvements in efficiency are not speculative; they are real.” - Intenational Energy Agency found that an additional $1 invested in more efficient electrical equipment and appliances avoids more than $2 in investment (power generation, transmission, & distribution infrastructure).
 * Efficiency: The Other Renewable Resource **
 * o Far and away
 * o Most cost-effective among solutions to climate crisis
 * o Can be implemented faster than others
 * o Industrial processing
 * o Residential buildings
 * o Commercial buildings
 * o Electricity gaining sector
 * o Design of cities

- Different technologies brought many opportunities that made us fail to save energy - Energy efficiency experts found several ways where energy savings can be found: - Any nation that starts to implement a strategy for pervasive improvements in the efficiency in which energy is converted to useful work will find that this is the most effective way to save energy and reduce global warming pollution - US went through a period of being careful with efficiency gains - In that period of time, the results to reduce oil consumption was incredible - The US cut oil use by 17% while increasing the economy by 27% - They were no longer very dependent on imported oil - When the conservation was allowed to lapse, the rate of efficiency gains slowed down - The US’s dependence on imported oil increased again and oil prices rose - California was the state that didn’t lose its focus on efficiency - In the past three decades, California’s total per capita electricity consumption hasn’t increased - Its economic output almost doubled - In the rest of the US, per capita electricity increased by more than 60% over the same period - The ration of energy use to each dollar of GDP in California has been cut in half, compared with 1993 - The total savings for the state from energy efficiency has been roughly $1 trillion - The experience in California and other states has proved that the cost of efficiency measures that avoid electricity use is less than the cost of building new generating capacity - These results were achieved with the decoupling of uitiliy incentives from:
 * Save Energy, Save the Planet **
 * o Recycling and capturing wasted heat from electricity generation and heat-intensive industrial processes
 * o When inefficient industrial electric motors are replaced with more efficient modern motors
 * o Insulation of buildings in ever sector
 * o Replacement of windows, lighting systems, hot water heaters, appliances, and electronics to more efficient versions
 * o Higher fuel-economy standars and greater use of mass transit
 * o Energy use
 * o Higher standards for effiency in appliances and buildings
 * o Higher mileage requirements for automobiles than in the rest of the US

- Using fuel twice by simultaneously generating electricity and thermal energy offers the largest opportunites for energy efficiency savings - There are four opportunities that are mentioned by energy efficiency experts as being the most valuable:
 * Four Opportunites for Efficiency Savings **
 * o One of the largest opportunites for efficiency gains throughout the industrial sector fo the global economy is through the replacementof older inneficient electric motors with more efficient ones
 * o Steel mills have required enormous amounts of energy to melt the metals into a liquid, in order to cast thich sheets, which are heated again in order to recast them into steel in a specific form. Recent discoveries now make it possible to skip the scond heating
 * o Engineers have erred on the side of oversizing pumps and have failed to optimize the interatction of the overall system of pumps and pipes. By replacing old pumps with more modern ones, it would optimize the efficient flow of fluids
 * o Most oil refineries and chemical processors rely on a energy-intensive first step called distillation that mny experts say can be replaced by a much more energy-efficient.

- Older hoems are usually the most inefficient but can be upgraded with investments - The retrofitting of inefficient residential and commercial buildings to make them more energy efficient would create millions of jobs that cannot be outsourced in the US - One of the biggest sources of wasted energy in buildings is leaky ductwork - The wasted energy that is caused is hidden, walls, attics and basements, the loses are usually invisible, except when the utility bill comes each month - There is no division between used and wasted energy - Most windows in buildings leak huge amounts of heat to the outside air in the winter and do the opposite in the summer, making them inefficient - The new, more efficient windows are more expensive, but wil reduce energy bills by cutting the heat loss in the winter and reducing the heat gain in the summer - In commercial buildings, architects have rediscovered that allowing people to open windows at times can save energy - Architects and builders are now also paying attention to the design and construction of roofs in order to minimize heat absorbed from the sun by buildings during the summer and to decrease heat loss during the winter - Highly reflective white roofs are efficient in areas that use heavy air-conditioning
 * Sources of Lost Heat **

- Residential buildings gain in energy effiency as their appliances and electronic systems are upgraded to more efficient and modern versions - All products and systems can be made far more efficient with the use of modern computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing approaches - New manufacturing technologies make it possible to use new materials and new designs that in many cases result in revolutionary improvements to products and processes that have followed the same basic design for many generations
 * Efficient Appliances **