Green Jersey

Lighting standards added to U.S. energy plan

by William Owen

President Barack Obama yesterday announced a long-delayed improvement in lighting.

As he himself remarked, this is not one of the more obvious moves against global warming, but it should prove effective. Lighting our homes and offices accounts for nearly 7 percent of energy costs, and the new rule will cut the amount of electricity used by certain types of fluorescent and incandescent lights 15 to 25 percent beginning in 2012.

The backstory: Efficiency standards for lighting came into effect in 1992, and were to be revised in 1997. Those revisions began (10 years late) after a court settlement in 2006, with the first changes coming in 2007 affecting household incandescents.

These standards announced yesterday followed the passage by the House of Representatives on Friday of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

The ACES legislation is one of the major components in the approach the administration is taking to address the problems stemming from our dependency on carbon-based energy generation (oil, coil and natural gas) and the emissions, and climate effects, that result.

ACES is the first step the government has taken towards establishing true-cost pricing for carbon energy. Coal and oil, as industries, both receive billions of dollars a year in subsidies (compounded when you consider the costs of litigation, security for shipments and the costs stemming from international negotiations).

This has long been the greatest obstacle towards allowing alternatives a foothold in the so-called free market. The effective energy monopolies these industries hold through their unnaturally low pricing makes emergent technologies seemingly more expensive (in reality their costs are upfront and open, while the true costs of coal and oil are hidden).

Establishing true-cost price points for carbon-based energy sources allows alternative energy producers the opportunity to innovate and streamline to match and beat pricing for their high-emission counterparts.

The multifaceted approach to dealing with energy and climate change is making its way down to the local level as well.

As reported in the Trenton Times, a retirement community in Plainsboro has invested nearly $500,000 to enact green initiatives. They have reduced their waste accumulation and subsequent disposal costs, and have already reduced energy costs by 25 percent.