Our View:
In the year 1954 a young physicist completed his Doctorate and joined the Department of Physics under noble laureate Enrico Fermi at the University of California at Berkeley to pursue a career in particle physics. After 20 years of research Dr Arthur H Rosenfeld had matured from a young research scholar to eventually lead the Noble Prize winning particle physics group of Luis Alvarez at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory . In 1973 soon after the OPEC Oil crisis, Dr. Rosenfeld was asked to organise a study at Princeton University on how to institutionalise energy efficiency in the U.S. in lines with the development in Europe and Japan. At that point of time oil crisis had increased the importance of this study to a national security issue. Out of the conference emerged several ideas like CFL ( Compact Fluorescent Light) and low emissive windows that kept out heat in summer and kept in the heat during winter while allowing light.
Enthused by the results of the Conference, this atomic scientist changed his line of work in 1974 to pioneer a new field of efficient use of energy, and formed the Center for Building Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and led it until 1994. The Center developed electronic ballasts for fluorescent lamps (which led to compact fluorescent lamps), low-emissivity windows, and the DOE-2 computer program for the energy analysis and design of buildings, for which Dr. Rosenfeld was personally responsible.
At that point of time the California Energy Commission (CEC) was set up and the new energy efficiency concepts were put to use in the state by both educating consumers as well as by legislation in conjunction with California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Today CEC has knocked 20 per cent off electricity use in the last 35 years with better appliances and enforcement of energy efficiency programmes saving the state at least $ 2 billion a year. Dr Rosenfeld headed the California Energy Comission since the year 2000 and brought out pathbreaking concepts like the "Rosenfeld Effect" some of which are documented in his biography "The Art of Energy Efficiency" . CEC today is working in close liaison with all utility companies as well as households to reduce energy requirements further and develop the state as a world model for clean solar energy.
Before OPEC oil shock of 1973 , the utilities took demand and supply to be exogenous. Demand went up by 6 per cent a year, doubling every 20 years and that demand had to be met. Nobody questioned the theory or its sustainability. In fact the rise in energy demand like consumer demand was considered a important economic data based on which the industrial growth and countries economic health was computed. In the US, energy was dirt cheap. And it was treated like dirt. The concept was that if required in every 100 miles, they would have had to have a power generation plant either nuclear or fossil fuel to meet the rising demands.
However the California Energy model firmly established that growth is not the only way to success. As a matter of fact it challenged this relentless growth model developed by the modern day economists and proved that because it is neither sustainable nor desirable, the efficiency model must replace it one day. The efficiency model is based on conservation of resources and its optimum utilisation unlike the growth model which is based on redundant capacities and large economies of scale. Under this regime a US auto major would voluntarily cut and comprise on non-essentials the moment the global crisis arrived. Like the Japanese car maker Honda which even give up its prestige Formula 1 dream team that it had nurtured for a decade, to only concentrate on its core operations, and save $ 200 million a year it incurred on maintaining the racing team . The Wall Street Banks instead of rushing for Federal aid and then trying to show higher Q1 profits by enhancing trading volumes of securities with bailout money would have concentrated on first sorting out its Banking operations from derivatives . Then it should have used the bailout funds and driven forward pure Banking operations like retail banking or corporate lending, to make its operations sustainable in the long run and beneficial for the economy.
The Big questions are :
If energy specialists at California Energy Commission can substitute the growth model with the efficiency model why cannot economists ?
Is continuous rise of consumption & demand rational. Cannot economic contraction be managed efficiently without human misery ?
Is it safe to eternally balloon debts and growth. Cannot optimum consumption of resources cut wastages & replace huge redundant capacities.?
Must a corporate unable to maintain market share plan a mega merger with the closest rival only to create an unmanageable behemoth.
Must we plan for a new 10,000 seat software infrastructure when our current utilisation of seating capacity is just 35 %
If we cut down on lavish offices, executive jets and the 5 star perks for those employed, we may not have to pink slip thousand others
When will efficiency substitute mega growth, optimum substitute maximum and resource conservation substitute redundancy.
In this blog from ecology to economy we discuss practices that are efficient and sustainable for a clean, safe and a better world.
We could be wrong. Tell us if we are & why? We encourage diverse opinion even if it is from commercially interested groups opposed to our thinking.
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