The enormous scale of all the energy that we never used

It’s not easy working in the energy efficiency world — that wonky sphere focused on tweaking homes and appliances to get us to use less energy, and so, contribute less to climate change.

It’s a place where you see constant successes — Obama’s administration has put in place dozens of new standards to make products more energy efficient — but can’t ever seem to get much credit for them. After all, who notices the energy that they never use? Who is acutely conscious of doing more with less?

Energy efficiency takes a huge number of forms, ranging from weatherizing a house to upping the fuel efficiency of vehicles. A new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a prominent nonprofit that both researches and promotes energy efficiency, makes the case that it has truly been transformative, and in a way that is quantifiable, over the past several decades.

Read the full story. (Washington Post)