Energy Efficiency and Human Behavior

I wrote in a previous post Climate Denial and Extreme CSR about the human behavior issues surrounding the psychological acceptance of climate change. Engineers involved ni energy efficiency don't like to admit it, but there's a human behavior element to energy efficiency as well. In fact, there was just a hole conference on the subject organized by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, not exactly a flaky bastion of mushy thought.

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance sent Karen Horkitz, director of NEEA's evaluation and partner services, and recently published an interview with her. I'll excerpt some of it here.

" ... The first important take-away for the energy efficiency community is that behavior change is a key component in the majority of, if not all, energy efficiency initiatives. The industry is counting on behavior change to capture as much as half of the target future energy efficiency gain. We can ignore it, but if we do we are limiting how much potential savings we can realize."

"Another take-away is that there are strong behavioral barriers that discourage people from taking action related to energy consumption and climate change. One speaker described climate change as a "perfect storm for doing nothing". That's because, from a decision-making perspective, climate change has many characteristics that typically lead human beings to make poor decisions-the potential negative impacts seem far in the future, we don't have any concrete examples of consequences, and taking action requires changes that are inconvenient for us. Behavioral economics research, however, offers techniques to influence behavior in predictable and quantifiable ways."

"That leads into the third thing I'd like to mention: that behavior change is a social science with a fairly robust body of research behind it. I think a lot of people in the energy efficiency field have this idea that behavior change is just a squishy concept-where the actions taken to change behavior are vague and the impacts unmeasurable. But we actually do know quite a bit about how to affect predictable and quantifiable behavior change. Mass marketers have known about and applied effective behavioral science techniques for decades, and we also know quite a bit about how to effect behavior change in commercial and industrial settings."

"It's not just a question of the environmental impacts of climate change. Businesses, industry and government all face tremendous financial and security risks associated with climate change. In addition, energy efficiency offers industry a way to improve production efficiency, and offers the commercial and industrial sectors a source of competitive advantage. The financial community has even begun to recognize that companies who are effectively addressing sustainability issues also tend to have more effective overall business management and results.

The conference featured numerous presentations that illustrated various approaches to behavior change. Some trends include:

Programs that focus on energy consumption feedback to the end user.

Competition-based programs.

Community-based programs.

Strategic energy management.

Media campaigns and social media.

Research techniques.

ACEEE has made a complete library of presentations from the conference available.

New legislation to Amend Recovery Act & Restrict Overseas Products

Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Bob Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Jon Tester (D-MT) requested that stimulus spending on a renewable energy program is discontinued until restrictions are implemented ensuring that the grantees of federal funding for these projects utilize domestic construction materials and products. The senators have cited the fact that nearly 80 percent of $2.1 billion in wind energy U.S. Recovery Act grants were approved for foreign-owned companies. Much of the recent consternation is over a $1.5 billion Texas wind power project that according to Sen. Schumer would create 3,000 green jobs in China but only 300 in the U.S.

This group of senators requested a moratorium on the distribution of section 1603 grant funding and awarding of any further grants until an amendment to the stimulus package is approved by the legislative process. Section 1603 of the Recovery Act allocates 30 percent cash grants for energy property in lieu of federal tax credits. Furthermore, they have authored new legislation entitled the American Renewable Energy Jobs Act, which would amend the Recovery Act and require that stimulus funds be only authorized for clean energy projects that incorporate materials manufactured in the U.S. and/or create a majority of jobs in the country. This is nothing new as “Buy American” legislation intended to benefit the U.S. economy and employment through the use of U.S. government funds has been part of many policies for decades including many infrastructure elements of the stimulus bill but has been impinged upon as the country outsources more of its manufacturing.

The American Renewable Energy Jobs Act proposes to expand the “Buy American” provision to include restrictions on all U.S. trading partners, and to extend the provision to private enterprises. The Department of Energy, which oversees the clean energy stimulus program, stated that suspending the clean energy grants program would require immediate layoffs at U.S. manufacturing plants due to the stoppage of work on major contracts.

What’s more, China is one of the leading global producers of solar panels; many of the power generation projects funded by the stimulus have subsidized the installation of overseas solar products. This is the trade-off for the carbon emissions reductions benefit until the U.S. bolsters its clean energy manufacturing market share, as it is attempting to do by offering more tax credits to companies. Thus, now that health care reform is essentially complete from a legislative perspective, the U.S. has the opportunity to enact comprehensive energy reform to lessen the likelihood of these conflicts from happening in the future.

The development of a clean energy economy is a vague term since it has not been clearly defined whether it means simply the generation and consumption of clean energy power, clean energy manufacturing or both. The Recovery Act was quite good-natured in its intention of funding a fledging alternative energy industry, where many companies struggled to obtain R&D support and competed on an unlevel playing field on the demand side, based on minimal government support from past administrations. However, due to the lack of a sufficient clean technology corporate infrastructure, it was inevitable that much of the funding would aid overseas companies, some of which whom do not even have facilities in the U.S.

A Nominal Egg

The story goes that a recent arrival in New England (in the Northeast United States) met a neighbor who warned her that heating her home that winter was going to cost "a nominal egg." Tickled that she had learned a local expression, she told her Boston-born husband at dinner that evening. He told her that it was not a local expression, that people everywhere used it. She said that she had never herself heard it before. He replied that surely someone somewhere had told her that something had cost "an arm and a leg!"

Meanwhile over on Sightline.org's Daily Score, Eric de Place posted an interesting piece on electricity prices. He plotted electricity consumption vs. electricity price for the 50 states (less Hawaii, but plus Washington, D.C.). Lo and behold, even given all the generalizations inherent in such a plot, the higher cost correlated with lower consumption. De Place's conclusion was that to encourage energy conservation, we should raise electricity prices. This sparked a lot of discussion ranging from the efficacy of tiered rates to the need to avoid a regressive rate structure that weighs more heavily on lower income citizens than higher income ones.

The upshot for me was a little different.

Here's the conundrum I see: Higher energy prices encourage conservation. But energy conservation serves only to keep electricity prices where they are. For example, here in the US Pacific Northwest, excess power generated by our dams is sold to California consumers. Basically, the energy we save is just placed on the open market. Those not doing the conserving get cheaper energy (because there is more supply), and to the extent we can get California consumers to purchase our excess electricity, our electric rates get subsidized and are arguably unjustifiably low.

My thinking is that we need to take the electricity conserved and translate that into other resources. For example, we save XXX mwh region wide over a month. We convert that to how much "water-through-the-dams" was saved, and spill that water in a way that benefits salmon instead. That way it's a sort of cap-and-trade for electricity. We are actually generating less electricity and investing more in our other resources over time. The cost of electricity rises, especially outside the region, because the excess created by conservation is actually removed from the market. The 'savings' get invested in others of our resources in our region.

I know there are probably a thousand things to work through to put such a system in place. But it is this fundamental dynamic that will start the positive feedback cycle on energy conservation. So long as our 'conserved' electricity is simply made available for others to use, the price will not go up, and serious energy efficiency, not the energy itself, will appear to cost the 'nominal egg.'

What Solar Oversuppliers Could Learn from LED Market

Global supply of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is facing a shortage in 2010, according to several leading market analyst firms. As more and more companies support the solar supply chain, which has an overabundance of panel inventory currently, it is surprising that more companies have not turned their attention to overlapping synergistic products and services that support the LED supply chain. What’s more, high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) feed into energy-efficient solid state lighting, which has an analogous carbon emissions reductions benefit of solar and is eligible for green energy incentive programs. In addition, companies who receive green stimulus or other government funding for SSL are able to offset their net R&D cost, which also supports consumer electronics, where there is an emerging shortage of LED backlighting devices.

Total consumption of LEDs reached 63 billion units in 2009, up from 57 billion in 2008. According to iSuppli market analysts, overall LED consumption was just above the industry’s total capacity of 75 billion units, indicating that many LED manufacturers were operating at nearly 100 percent capacity levels. The shortage predicted in 2010 applies to LEDs used for the backlighting of large-screen LCD-TVs due to their appealing thin design attributes and stellar picture quality. In comparison to notebook computers, which typically use 50 LEDs, or monitors, which require approximately 100 LEDs, LCD-TVs consume 300 to 500 LEDs per panel; thus a shortage would impact these products the most, especially in terms of cost. Furthermore, LEDs have deeply penetrated markets including: cell phones, portable navigation devices, digital photo frames, digital cameras and keypads.

On the green energy front, LED solutions are being increasingly adopted in the general illumination market but primarily for commercial and industrial lighting applications, which ultimately lower a building’s energy cost and carbon footprint. However, there are only two primary equipment-makers that support this overall supply chain, Aixtron of Germany and Veeco Instruments of the U.S., which are planning to double their production capacity by the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to the end of 2009. Interestingly enough, their tools are capable of supporting the growth of thin-films used both in the solar and LED industries allowing them to shift emphasis, depending on demand. In addition, there are significantly less HB-LED producers globally compared to solar panel manufacturers, whom have been dealing with a glut of oversupply and declining module prices. However, a domestic LED chip producer, Cree, based in Durham, NC, has been enjoying record profits and stock price valuations in recent months.

According to Navigant Consulting, 2009 started with approximately 1.6-gigawatts (GW) of solar inventory and 7.2GW of technology was shipped to the first point of sale. Approximately 6.6GW were installed globally in 2009, which leaves 2.2GW of photovoltaic cells and modules likely sitting in inventory in 2010. This inventory will likely continue to grow based on the fact there are about 400 solar panel manufacturers across the world. Even though the solar industry benefited from record low module prices in recent years, leading to increasing installation figures globally, an increasing oversupply would be alarming, especially once prices stabilize, which may lessen demand.

As the LED industry seeks to meet a possible shortage, the solar industry has been facing sliming profits and the stalling of clean energy legislation globally, as selling prices shift closer to operating costs. It is surprising that more corporations have not diversified their product portfolio by shifting into the LED market.

Photo credit: Symbolism of Solar Oversupply

Clams and Red Herrings

I wrote earlier about why we find it so easy to deny what our emissions are doing to the planet. Climate Denial and Extreme CSR. But I just found another reason - red herrings. Read this brief report from Liz Gross of Living On Earth (a site that I otherwise much respect).

"Laughing gas can make a dental patient happy as a clam. But scientists were not so happy to find clams belching out this powerful greenhouse gas. A recent study by Danish and German biologists analyzed digestion in a number of aquatic bottom feeders, including mollusks and insect larvae. The belly gas of these invertebrates contained levels of laughing gas - or nitrous oxide - that surprised the scientists. Nitrous oxide is the fourth largest contributor to global warming. Pound for pound, this gas traps 310 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. While burning fossil fuels is the most common source of nitrous oxide emissions, worms living in nitrogen-rich soil also release the gas. The recent study though was the first to measure the emissions from animals living in rivers, streams and oceans.

But the researchers found it's not the clams themselves that release the gas - it's their lunch. These animals feed on sediment full of nitrogen-hungry bacteria. And thanks to runoff from fields treated with chemical fertilizer, there are plenty of nitrates out there. Usually, the bacteria don't break down these nitrates. But in environments with no oxygen, like the belly of a clam or a snail, they do - releasing laughing gas in the process.

With demand for nitrogen fertilizer increasing, and global greenhouse gas emissions going up, nitrous oxide in mollusk burps is no laughing matter. That's this week's note on emerging science." So why bring this clam thing up? Why link clams to greenhouse gas production? Is this to absolve us of our own nitrous production? (See my post on the Tangled Web of Carbon Emissions for a sense of how great that problem is, and the surprising single industry that produces most of it.) Clams have been producing nitrous for eons. Should we include exterminating clams as part of our response to climate change?

Well, first of all, nitrous oxide produced by clams is part of the current cycling of materials in the ecosphere. It is not like hauling up fossil carbon from the depths and spraying it into the atmosphere. Not only can we NOT stop what clams are doing, but it would probably be destructive to do so. Also, burning fossil fuels is not the most common source.

"Well," Liz might say to me, "I never advocated the extermination of clams." That is certainly true. And yet that is the laughable, unspoken, and absurdist conclusion to a piece such as this. We all want to laugh, so we all conclude it. And in the process we trivialize emissions and climate change.

This is a small thing, but climate skeptics LOVE reading these kinds of articles, articles that point out the "natural course' that the Earth is taking, articles that let us laugh at a trivialized catastrophe. We all need a sense of humor here, but really. It's hard enough forcing change through the political system without these kinds of postings. Let's be judicious in our presentation of topics.