This is the most promising headline I've read in a while. My father always said, "The momentum is going to end just like it did in the 70s. Money drives everything and when the gas prices went back down everyone forgot about energy conservation." Study Suggests That, Unlike in the ’70s, Energy Lessons Will Last
	Feb 5, 2008	New York Times
	CLIFFORD KRAUSS The oil shocks of the 1970s produced a flurry of attention to alternative sources of energy, but it faded once prices dropped in the mid-1980s. Now, with oil prices again high and climate change moving up the list of public concerns, interest in alternative energy is once again at fever pitch. Is history about to repeat itself? Not likely, according to a leading energy consulting firm. In a report scheduled for release Tuesday, the firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, concludes that multiple factors will continue pushing the world toward greater use of alternative energy sources like sun and wind power, regardless of what happens to oil prices. “The focus today on clean energy is not a bubble or passing phenomenon,” the report says. “Unconventional clean energy is now poised to cross the divide and move from the fringes of the energy sector to the mainstream.” What makes today different from the 1970s is growing apprehension about global warming as a threat to political security and the environment, according to the report. That is pushing governments to demand, and subsidize, greater use of alternative energy. “Climate change and putting a price on carbon will change the dynamics of the energy marketplace,” said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a leading historian on the oil industry. He noted that with the Chinese and Indian economies growing rapidly, “you need renewables as part of the solution to meet this astonishing demand growth.” The report notes that renewable fuels will remain small compared with conventional fuels for many years, and their rate of adoption will be determined by the intersection of government policies, economic growth rates and technological breakthroughs. But the report projects that rising private and public investment in clean energy — including biofuels like ethanol; renewable power, including wind, geothermal and solar generation; nuclear energy; and techniques to capture and store carbon emissions — could surpass $7 trillion by 2030. In 2007, roughly $125 billion was invested in such energy sources worldwide, said Robert LaCount, lead author of the report, about 20 percent more than the year before. Other analysts say there is no guarantee energy in the future will be cleaner because renewable energy is effectively in a race with other unconventional sources, like liquefied coal, Canadian oil sands and oil shale, which emit higher amounts of carbon dioxide than conventional hydrocarbons. While several major oil companies have joined smaller firms in investing in wind, geothermal and solar energy sources, they are investing far more money at the moment in oil sands. Environmentalists at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pembina Institute have estimated that at least 20 percent of the pollution reductions coming from the new vehicle fuel economy standards law, which Congress passed in 2007, would be negated by the additional production and refining of oil sands in Canada by 2020. “Producing more low carbon fuels is all well and good, but their benefits can be washed out if we don’t tackle the threat of high carbon fuels like oil sands at the same time,” said Deron Lovaas, an analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Development of renewable energy sources has taken significant leaps. The American wind industry, for example, expanded its generating capacity 45 percent last year, generating enough power for 1.5 million households. Accounting for 30 percent of the new American power-production capacity last year, wind reached 1 percent of the country’s electricity supply, according to data from the American Wind Energy Association. A recent study by Emerging Energy Research, another Cambridge consulting firm, estimated that as much as $65 billion would be invested in additional wind power from 2007 to 2015, producing a compound annual growth rate of 15.7 percent. The Cambridge Energy Research Associates study projects that installed capacity of geothermal power should increase by 50 percent or more in the next five years as the number of countries using it doubles, to more than 40. . The study also noted serious limitations for clean energy development. It estimated that “meaningful deployment” of technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions is at least two decades away. It acknowledged the challenges for nuclear power “with regard to policy, capital costs, waste management — and public opinion.”

According to the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, it looks like program budgets are going up for Energy Efficiency programs exceeding 3.7 billion. That's right. That's a B for billion. This takes into account Canada as well. I am hoping south of the border can be quoted next year as it will be interesting what Mexico is doing around this. I went to CEE last month and found it very helpful in learning the landscape. It gave me a lot of insight and their website is very helpful resource.

2007 Efficiency Program Budgets Exceed $3.7 Billion
CEE Reports on Budget Data for Third Year

This year’s report on the size of efficiency program industry in 2007 shows the magnitude of programs in both the U.S. and Canada. Taken together, these programs, all ratepayer-funded, are now an industry, shaping both supply and demand for efficient products in both markets.

U.S. programs reached $3.1 billion, an 18 percent increase over 2006. While Canada has long sponsored efficiency programs, this is the first year the data have been aggregated in one place. Canada adds another $.6 billion, bringing the total to $3.7 billion. Budgets include commercial and industrial, residential, low income, and load management programs, along with the other expenditures necessary in different regions with varying conditions.

The impact of these programs is also available for 2006. The efficiency program industry saved Canadian and U.S. ratepayers an astounding $5.4 billion in 2006. That figure is based on energy savings of 59,800 GWh of electricity and 162.6 million therms of gas. Thus, efficiency programs abated 36 million metric tonnes of CO2, an increase of 7 million tonnes over 2005 savings.

The CEE report is available in two formats. You can request a printed overview report from CEE, or you can visit the Web site at http://www.cee1.org/ee-pe/2007/index.php3 for details by state, region, and province and by sector.



CEE
CEE is a consortium that brings together efficiency program administrators from across the U.S. and Canada to discover, through conversation, credible, unbiased solutions to issues in the efficiency program industry. As a collective entity, the individual efficiency programs of CEE are able to partner not only with each other, but with other industries, trade associations, and government agencies. By working together at CEE, administrators multiply the effect of their funding dollars, exchange information on best practices and, by doing so, achieve greater energy efficiency for the public good.