A source of energy hiding in plain sight

For example, he hasn't focused on reforming existing laws and policies that place energy efficiency practices and technologies at a comparative disadvantage. Newer, cleaner, more efficient energy technologies face numerous barriers as they compete with incumbent products in the marketplace.

Perhaps the most troubling of these obstacles are those that US legislatures and regulators impose, often as unintended consequences of well-intended policies. Just a few examples:

• The Clean Air Act and its various amendments promote continued operation of some of the country's least efficient power plants. Exempting oldest plants from meeting pollution limits enables continued operation of some of the most polluting generators in the country far beyond their normal life. Pollution controls today are targeted where they’re least needed, artificially inflating the value of the oldest, dirtiest plants.
   
• Failure of local and regional agencies to control sprawl, the spreading of suburban areas over rural land, has contributed to growth in vehicle traffic and to energy-inefficient urban systems. The federal government redistributes gasoline tax revenues to states and municipalities based on highway use, doing little to boost public-transit alternatives.
   
• In 2005, the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service was given oversight for developing rules to regulate coastal siting of wind farms. More than three years later, the agency still has not finalised its site-permitting procedures, and the US still does not have any wind turbines generating electricity in its territorial waters.
   
• In most states, natural gas and electric utilities face little incentive to promote efficient use of energy by their customers because utility profits are tied to sales. A utility’s rates are typically set based on an estimation of cost of providing services over some period of time, divided by an assumed level of sales over that period. If actual sales are less than projected sales, the utility earns less. Today, profits of most utilities shrink when customers make their homes more efficient by upgrading to Energy Star appliances or generate their own electricity with rooftop solar panels.

Fixing these problems would not be overly difficult. Clean Air Act exemptions could be eliminated. Federal agencies could design policies to promote public transit and curb suburban sprawl. Electricity sales and profits could be de-coupled, and consumers encouraged to use electricity at off-peak hours.

Individuals can also do their part. Homeowners can install geothermal heat pumps, integrate solar panels into roofs and improve the energy efficiency of residences with compact fluorescent light bulbs, appliances, insulation and other devices.

As electricity customers, Americans can demand that their utilities offer green-power programs, sponsor energy efficiency projects or operate cleaner power plants.

As taxpayers and voters, they can write letters, march, and cast a local, state, or national ballot for those candidates that best promote energy efficiency.

As shareholders, employers, employees and investors, they can support clean-power companies or changes at the workplace.

As citizens, Americans can participate in meetings to discuss the permitting of wind farms and attend state hearings.

As parents, they can educate their children, and as children, they can educate their parents.

To those who scoff at these ideas, consider that more severe actions have been taken to promote energy efficiency at other times and in other places.

After the energy crises of the 1970s, French regulators created the equivalent of an “energy police” to patrol streets at night, issuing fines to people who left lights on or drivers who left cars idling when they ran inside.