|
Accepting the Alliance to Save Energy's Charles H. Percy Award for Public Service
September 25, 2008
I am deeply grateful to the Kateri Callahan, the Alliance to Save Energy and its Board for bestowing me with this honor. I also thank Chairman Joseph Kelliher of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for nominating me for the Charles H. Percy Award.
I want first to introduce you to the smartest member of our household and one of the smartest people I know, who happens also to be a beautiful woman, my wife and the love of my life, Karen Galatz. And I need to acknowledge my two sons, Jacob who is here with us tonight, who thinks he is the smartest person in our house (and is pretty smart) and my oldest son, Jules, who is away at school at Oberlin but called today to wish me well and tell me he was proud of me.
As I am being honored this evening there are three individuals that I want to recognize as intellectual, inspirational, and practical guides who helped focus me on enhancing energy productivity in this country:
The first is Amory Lovins- A past Alliance Honoree and inventor of the “Soft Energy Path”. He is Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Amory has written so many books on energy I don’t have time to list them all. Two of my favorites are: Winning the Oil End Game and Small is Profitable. He is he the visionary of enabling distributed resources and the guru of enhancing energy productivity.
Amory taught me that if you want to effectively advocate for energy efficiency and energy productivity you should be the smartest person in the room. And if you are not, be sure to bring Amory with you.
The second is Art Rosenfeld, AKA “Doctor Efficiency”, and also a past Alliance Honoree. He is currently a Commissioner at the California Energy Commission and formerly Director of LBNL. Art is a person of superhuman intellect and energy and the father of energy productivity. He was the last graduate student of Enrico Fermi. But I am glad for all of us that Art switched from nuclear physics to energy productivity.
I spent 10 days in China with him last March reviewing the Chinese energy efficiency efforts. I then returned to Washington exhausted, while Art went off to India for 2 weeks to talk more about energy efficiency. Art taught me you have to be a bulldog to promote Energy Efficiency never letting go of your goal. I always hoped I would look good as Art when I got to be his age (he is now 81). But I think I have already squandered that opportunity.
My final mentor that I want to recognize is Doug Avery. Doug is currently a Project Manager at Southern California Edison. We call Doug the “Silverback” or the “Graybeard” of energy productivity. Doug was my partner in an energy efficient lighting consulting company for 8 years. We did projects all over the country. I remember fondly doing a lighting consulting job with Doug Hawaiian Electric - 8 glorious days in beautiful downtown Honolulu in office buildings counting light bulbs. I could have been in Cleveland and wouldn’t have known the difference.
But Doug taught me two critical lessons:
- First: Never assume anything, because as soon as you do you will be wrong. Always check your facts and your assumptions. If it looks like a 3 lamp fixture with a diffuse lens cover on - It will surely be a 5 lamp fixture when you take off the cover and check.
- Second: And most important- Nothing matters until the new efficient light bulb is put in the socket. Or the efficient air conditioner is installed. Or the Energy Star refrigerator is plugged in. We have to deploy energy efficiency for it to matter. Deployment at scale is the key.
So I have been thinking about Doug’s last lesson from a broader “Washington Policy” perspective. How do we get the light bulb in the socket? We all know that there is a tremendous amount of energy efficiency out there yet to do in this country- As much as 30%-50% by several recent studies- with technology we already have- SEER 24 air conditioners, LED electronic lighting, intelligent grid design. How do we deploy it at scale?
We know that when we look at the world’s developed countries from the lens of energy productivity (BTUs per U.S. Dollar of GDP) the U.S. does not even make the top 15. Japan leads the way with 4,500 BTU’s per dollar of GDP. Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the U.K are all in the top 15 using less than 7,500 BTU’s per $GDP, as are Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel and Italy. The U.S. trails behind at 9,000 BTUs per dollar of GDP.
So we have a lot of room for improvement. But how do we make improving our energy productivity from generation to transmission and distribution, all the way down to homes and businesses a national priority. How do we take the technology we now have on the shelf and invest in it now to deploy it nationally, rapidly and effectively at scale to save consumers money and kick start our economy again?
One among a number of good ideas is we need an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard nationwide. This is a standard that sets a minimum for the nation of the amount of new energy demand that must be provided by energy efficiency and increased energy productivity. It would create a market for energy efficiency like the renewable portfolio standards enacted by twenty-six states has done for wind, solar, biomass and geothermal resources. With Michigan recently passing such an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, eighteen states now have one in place. I am proud to say I helped put one in place in Nevada in 2005. But we need it nationally and we need it now.
How do we accomplish that? How do we motivate the political forces to put an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard in place for the good of our nation and the good of our economy?
Well I have an idea. I took a page right from the political play book of issue framing.
We need to frame the issue of enhancing energy productivity and efficiency to ingrain it in the national psyche. We need a national call to action to compel the political will to enhance energy productivity in the U.S. through the rapid deployment of energy efficiency, demand response, and efficient electric grid operation. I know that is a mouthful- but I have boiled it down to a three word battle cry for the energy efficiency warriors of our time.
DEPLOY, BABY, DEPLOY!
|
