Over the years, ten states (in dark red) have pressured their utilities to increase efficiency and conservation.
Most state governments and utilities have achieved very little.
Amory Lovin’s Rocky Mountain Institute found that the USA would use 30% less electricity if laggard states would catch up.
Wasted electricity is a premier resource.
Energy efficiency is surely the lowest hanging fruit in the quest to satisfy our national energy hunger (and to cure our addiction to oil)—household energy use totals about 22 percent of our nation’s total energy consumption, much of which is senselessly wasted through poor design and construction.
And of the easy to reach fruits of efficiency, the very easiest to pluck might well be the weatherization of homes, which Amory Lovins, efficiency guru and founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, once called the “oil field in our attics”.
The study has alarmed politicians and engineers as each state makes various claims and excuses. Yes but my state has more factories. Yes but my state has older power plants. Yes but my state has poorly insulated older homes. Exactly.