The First Line of Defense

I have a favorite chart. It’s from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and it shows the flow of energy through the U.S. economy.

What makes it wild: in 2021, we used 36.6 quadrillion BTUs for electricity generation. Only 12.9 quads actually made it to homes and businesses as usable electricity. The other 23.7 quads? Lost. Heat loss. Inefficiency. Wasted.

And that’s just the generation side. Follow the energy into buildings, and even more gets lost. Another 21 quadrillion BTUs, gone.

We Are Hemorrhaging Energy

We are hemorrhaging energy. The energy we already produce, from the power plants we already built, burning the fuel we already extracted. Most of it just disappears into heat that does nothing useful.

This is why energy efficiency is the first line of defense against climate change.

It’s not sexy. It doesn’t make good headlines. But it’s the cheapest, fastest way to reduce emissions using technology we already have.

Every watt you don’t waste is a watt you don’t have to generate. Every BTU that stays in your building is a BTU that doesn’t leak out through crappy insulation. Basic math.

My Career

I’ve spent my career in this field. Evaluating programs, overseeing projects, writing standards. I’ve looked at the data from every angle, and the conclusion is always the same: efficiency works, and we should be doing way more of it.

The industry is weird, though. It’s not glamorous like solar. It doesn’t have the wow factor of electric vehicles. When I tell people I work in energy efficiency, they sometimes look confused. Like I just said I work in accounting. Which, to be fair, I kind of do. I count energy. I make sure buildings use less of it.

Every Building Can Do Better

But here’s what that actually means in practice: every building in America could use less energy than it currently does. Not through sacrifice. Through better equipment, better controls, better maintenance.

The residential, commercial, and industrial sectors all have efficiency opportunities. Different approaches for each, but the principle is the same. Stop wasting what you’re already generating.

The Workforce

And this requires workers. Auditors who assess buildings. Engineers who design retrofits. Technicians who install efficient equipment. Operators who maintain it properly. Researchers who develop new technologies. Program managers who run utility incentive programs. Evaluators who verify that the programs actually work.

I’ve worked with all of these people. The industry is full of professionals who care deeply about getting this right, who obsess over measurement and verification, who argue about baseline methodologies because the details actually matter.

A Conversation Anyone Can Have

Efficiency is also one of the few climate topics where you can actually talk to people across the political spectrum. Nobody wants to waste money. My uncle thinks climate change is a hoax, but he still doesn’t want to pay more than he has to on his energy bills. That’s a conversation I can have with anyone.

So that’s the deal. We waste most of the energy we produce. We have the technology to waste less. It saves money and it reduces emissions. Whether that matters to you because of climate change or because you like keeping more of your paycheck, the math is the same.

Efficiency isn’t exciting. I get it. But it works, and we should be doing more of it.