APS physicists urge US to prioritize energy efficiency

Physics Today: Improving the nation’s energy efficiency offers the greatest potential in the short term for increasing US energy security, lowering carbon dioxide emissions, and reducing oil imports, says a new report released Tuesday by the American Physical Society. Many opportunities already exist to improve energy efficiency for both transportation and buildings at little or no cost, but the federal government must enact new policies to encourage their adoption, according to the report, Energy Future: Think Efficiency.Nobel laureate Burton Richter, the retired director of SLAC who chaired the 10-member APS study group, said current technologies will permit manufacturers of cars and light trucks to meet the 35-mile-per-gallon fuel economy mandate recently set by Congress for 2020. Through improvements to internal combustion engines, new lighter-weight materials, and diesel and hybrid technologies, automakers are capable of achieving an average of 50 mpg by 2030. The study panel, however, was doubtful that plug-in hybrid vehicles capable of traveling at least 40 miles in all-electric mode “will be available at affordable prices in the near term” because the more efficient and durable batteries capable of withstanding deep discharge cycles aren’t yet available at commercial scale. Both General Motors and Toyota have announced that they will introduce PHEVs equipped with lithium-ion batteries in 2010.The report says the construction of a significant number of zero-energy buildings, which consume no fossil energy, is feasible by 2020 except in hot and humid climates. It recommends that federal R&D spending for efficient buildings be increased from $100 million currently to the $250 million that was spent in 1980 (in inflation-adjusted terms). The report also calls on Congress to appropriate the funding increases for basic research that it authorized in the 2007 America COMPETES Act. Related links: APS Energy Efficiency Report: Energy = Future The Bellingham Herald