by Steve Clark, Founder of Citizens for Clean Energy 1989 (changed to the singular “Citizen” when no one seemed to care during the ’90s), now affiliated with Clean Energy Action

Would you use this bucket to carry a precious resource?

Let's just speak the truth. We all know the difference between right and wrong even if we choose to ignore it much of the time. At this time, few people can say they are ignorant of the consequences of continuing the use of fossil fuel, even if they choose to ignore those consequences. Our ignorance and denial is aided by economics.

Our economy is structured in such a way that it allows us to ignore the real world. Economists don't think the effects of economic activity on the environment are an important consideration, calling these things externalities. Generally speaking, people who, for whatever reason, fail to behave in accepted ways towards the real world, are made to spend time separated from the rest of society until they can be helped to acknowledge reality. Economists clearly need help.

In the last hundred years or so we have built great civilizations through the use of coal, oil and gas. Until now everything that humans have done, from building great cities, creating new technologies, and providing materials and goods that generally improve the well being of society, has been possible because of cheap and abundant supplies of carbon energy, generally referred to as fossil fuel.

It is an economic reality that because energy has been, and continues to be, cheap, there have been no considerations for using it in the most efficient manner. In other words, because energy is cheap we have built systems that waste much of the energy, either before or during the providing of the actual energy service that is wanted.

Examples of technologies that provide energy, but which are very inefficient, are abundant and include power plants, buildings and transportation systems. Some examples that we are all familiar with are the automobile and the home. We can also consider the supply chains that provide the energy services.

The internal combustion engine (ICE) is a device that turns chemical energy into mechanical energy. Supplying the ICE with fuel in the form of gasoline, we power our cars giving us the energy service we want, personal mobility. 80% of the chemical energy in gasoline is wasted.

The automobile is an incredibly refined technology for providing personal mobility. There are good reasons that we use petroleum fuels and internal combustion engines. They provide a level of mobility that is exceptional in ease of use, comfort, reliability, performance and range between refuelings. No one has ever introduced a better technology for doing what a gasoline fueled car does, despite the inefficient ICE. That is finally changing.

Electric vehicles are 90+% efficient and with improvements in batteries providing almost the range we have come to expect in a vehicle. Now think of supply chains. Instead of bringing petroleum from all over the world to our shores and refining it and distributing it, we can now put photovoltaic panels on our roof and, using the sunshine that falls there for free, drive our electric cars. This supply chain is much more efficient and is a hedge against all future increase in the cost of mobility. If gas goes to $5/gallon, who cares?

Let's look at two aspects of energy supply to our homes and buildings: lighting and comfort (normally called HVAC systems or heating and cooling). If you consider the entire supply chain from coal mine to light bulb, over 90% of the energy is wasted providing lots of heat but very little light.

Our buildings do a very poor job of providing comfort without big inputs of energy. Today this energy is primarily in the form of compressed natural gas (CNG). Do you know who has all the NG? The same folks that have the oil.

Simply orienting buildings to take advantage of sunshine in the winter and shade in the summer can reduce the energy needed by over 50%. Good insulation and caulk can save 80%. Who cares? No one. Energy is cheap. Or at least it has been in the past.

When a new customer requests energy service from a utility they are automatically given whatever the utility has available. The providers of power have invested in technologies that make economic sense. These companies supply energy at the most profit to the power plant owners.

It would seem a simple matter to change the rules of energy use. If a person wants to connect their home or business to the electric company's power line, it would be the automatic first choice of the utility to provide clean renewable energy, energy that is available in abundant supply and has no negative consequences in the real world. Only if the customer refused to accept this would they be given other alternatives such as coal or nuclear and then only if they were willing to pay a premium based on the potential damage to the real world of supplying energy from these sources. Economists and energy experts say this approach would be unrealistic.

The convenient truth is that with efficiency and renewable energy we can eliminate the wasteful use of fossil fuel and still have the energy services we want. The people who have gotten rich ignoring reality don't want you to know this. Don't wait for a government program to save the world. It is up to you. Call your utility and ask for 100% green power. You know the difference between right and wrong even if the fossil fuel industry doesn't.