Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

262National Energy Securitysavings. Indeed, such an investment would increase the funds available in the capitalmarketplace by several trillion dollars compared with current policy. 86Nor is this a peculiarly American result. Similar studies, some in evengreater detail, have shown comparable or larger savings for a wide range ofother industrial countries, many of which are already more energy-efficientthan the United States. These analyses, which have been reviewed elsewhere,87 show that probably all countries can cost-effectively improve theirenergy efficiency by severalfold—a fact of considerable importance for thelong-term balance of world oil supply and demand. Even Sweden, probablythe world’s most energy-efficient country, could (at a minimum) improve itsenergy efficiency by at least two- to threefold over the next few decades. 88It is especially encouraging that this could be achieved simply by permittingmarket forces to achieve the optimal economic balance between investments inefficiency and in new supply. A strategy that minimizes vulnerability and savesoil is thus a least-cost strategy. It is not inimical to national strength, security,and prosperity; rather, it is the very means of obtaining them.This discussion has not considered the many other advantages of such apolicy: in reducing price volatility and price increases, in countering inflationand unemployment, in reducing environmental and social impacts, in moderatingtensions and inequities, and in alleviating the global risks of climaticchange 89 and nuclear proliferation. 90 All these effects are important. But they,and energy vulnerability itself, need not be considered at all in order to concludethat greatly improved energy efficiency should be a dominant nationalpriority—on economic grounds alone. Indeed, many of the measuresdescribed here, despite many artificial distortions of prices and restrictions ofopportunity to invest efficiently, 91 are already being implemented throughordinary market mechanisms.Efficiency is the key to resilienceIn any discussion of energy alternatives there is a temptation to succumb tothe “gadget syndrome”—to concentrate on supply technologies while shortchangingconsideration of how the energy supplied can be effectively used.While highly efficient energy use is the cornerstone of any resilient energystrategy, it has never been a serious component of federal energy policy. Thegovernment has long assumed, as was widely believed a decade ago, that efficiencycannot be improved by much more than ten or twenty percent, and thateven this improvement would come only slowly, at high cost, and probably atconsiderable inconvenience. If this were true, America would need far moreenergy in the future than in the past, and would have to get much of it by