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Executive Summary
America
has the technological know-how and the resources to move away from dependence
on oil and other fossil fuels and toward a cleaner, more secure New Energy
Future.
America’s
dependence on fossil fuels poses challenges to America’s
environment, economic health and national security. Each of those challenges is
likely to become more critical in the years to come if we continue along our
present path of increasing energy use and increasing imports of energy from
abroad.
A New Energy Future in which America
is smarter about how we use energy and taps our abundant supplies of clean,
renewable, home-grown energy can address many of those challenges. Achieving
that future will require America
to set clear goals to guide our energy policies and to mobilize the scientific,
economic and political resources we need to meet them.
This paper estimates the benefits, in terms of fossil fuel
savings, of a New Energy Future scenario for America’s
future energy use, guided by the following goals:
Reduce our use of energy in our homes,
businesses and industry by 1O percent by 2025.
Save one-third of the oil we use today by 2025.
Harness clean, renewable, homegrown energy
sources for at least a quarter of our energy needs by 2025.
By achieving and, where possible, going beyond those goals,
by 2025 the United States
could:
Save 10.8
million barrels of oil per day, equal to four-fifths of the amount of oil
we currently import from all other nations in the world
Save 9.1
trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, nearly twice as much as
currently used in all of America’s
homes.
Save 900
million tons of coal per year, or about 80 percent of all the coal we
consumed in the United States
in 2005.
Save 1.7
billion megawatt-hours of electricity per year, 30 percent more than was
used in all the households in America
in 2005.
Achieving the energy savings and renewable energy targets
listed above will not be easy, but it can be done.
Reduce our use of
energy in our homes, businesses and industry by 10 percent by 2025.
Cutting our use of energy in homes, business and
industry by 10 percent would require reducing the amount of energy we are
projected to use in 2025 by 27 percent. Taking advantage of America’s
cost-effective energy efficiency
opportunities could reduce our consumption of electricity by as much as 20
percent and natural gas by about 22 percent. Similar savings are possible for
petroleum use.
A combination of new technologies (spurred by
more robust federal investment in energy saving technologies and tax
incentives) and energy conservation measures could provide the remainder of the
savings needed to achieve to 10 percent energy savings goal.
Save one third of the
oil we use today by 2025.
Sensible steps to improve the fuel economy of our vehicles,
reduce the rate of growth of vehicle travel, and replace some of the oil we use
with plant-based fuels could take us well beyond the goal of saving one third
of the oil we use today by 2025, providing total savings of 10.8 million
barrels of oil per day.
Increasing fuel
economy standards for cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon by 2018
and to 45 miles per gallon by 2023 would yield oil savings of 2.4 million
barrels per day.
Setting fuel
economy standards for heavy-duty trucks would save 1.1 million barrels of
oil per day by 2025.
Changing
our transportation priorities so that Americans drive no more in 2025 than
they do today could save 3.6 million barrels of oil per day versus projected
use in 2025.
Replacing a share of transportation fuels with plant-based fuels like ethanol and
biodiesel would save about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day.
Realizing 10 percent energy savings from homes,
business and industry would produce another 2 million barrels per day in oil
savings.
Harness clean, renewable,
homegrown energy sources for at least a quarter of our energy needs by 2025.
A variety of studies and industry projections suggest that
tapping America’s
abundant supplies of clean renewable energy could fulfill 22 percent of our
energy needs by 2025 – and we could reach 25 percent renewable energy with
technology advances that would enable us to fully tap our renewable potential.
Using plant-based fuels to substitute for oil in
transportation and industry could supply about 4.5 percent of our total energy
use in 2025.
Wind
power can provide at least 30 percent of America’s
electricity by 2025 and possibly more as new technologies and practices allow
for us to successfully integrate more wind power into America’s
electricity mix.
Solar and
geothermal power can combine to produce another 12 percent of America’s
electricity, while an assortment of other renewable technologies – ranging from
solar hot water heaters to geothermal heat pumps – can also make an important
contribution.
Additional renewable energy could be generated
using new technologies such as wave and tidal power or by achieving
technological improvements that would enable us to expand our use of other
renewable energy sources.
To achieve the benefits of a New Energy Future, the United
States must adopt policies designed to
increase our use of renewable energy and tap America’s
vast potential for energy efficiency improvements. America
must also increase its investments in research and development of the next
generation of clean energy technologies, as well as make the investments
necessary to bring those technologies into use.
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