The good news is that the world is full of proven, cheap ways to save energy. Here are the seven that could have the biggest impact.
Insulate
Space heating and cooling eats up 36 percent of all the worlds energy. Theres virtually no limit to how much of that can be saved, as prototype zero-energy homes in Switzerland and Germany have shown. Theres been a surge in new ways of keeping heat in and cold out (or vice versa). The most advanced insulation follows the law of increasing returns: if you add enough you can scale down or even eliminate heating and air-conditioning equipment, lowering costs even before you start saving on utility bills. Studies have shown that green workplaces (ones that dont constantly need to have the heat or air-conditioner running) have higher worker productivity and lower sick rates.
Change Bulbs
Lighting eats up 20 percent of the worlds electricity, or the equivalent of roughly 600,000 tons of coal a day. Forty percent of that powers old-fashioned incandescent light bulbsa 19th-century technology that wastes most of the power it consumes on unwanted heat.
Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLS, not only use 75 to 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs to generate the same amount of light, but they also last 10 times longer. Phasing old bulbs out by 2030 would save the output of 650 power plants and avoid the release of 700 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.
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