Power Economics

Chapter 1Good Building, Bad Building

Sometimes, the answer to a problem is right in front of your eyes. Conversations about energy often dwell on industries such as transportation, manufacturing, and power generation. Those are worthy targets of our scrutiny. Yet there is a culprit we tend to overlook, perhaps because it is all around us.

Our homes and buildings—referred to as the “built environment”—account for roughly 40 percent of the energy consumed annually in the United States.¹ Residential and commercial structures account for about 70 percent of the electricity we use in a typical year, and are responsible for more than a third of the world's energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.² Yet more than two-thirds of the total energy consumed in the United States is wasted, according to data compiled by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.³

“Most buildings waste energy needlessly, making power plants work harder and putting stress on the electric grid, making energy efficiency in buildings incredibly important,” according to the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit, bipartisan alliance of business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders.⁴

I've researched this topic thoroughly and almost every study supports the conclusion that buildings are a vast source of wasted energy. That's why I am adamant about making our buildings more energy efficient. If our buildings and their systems were optimized to save energy, instead of wasting it, many of our environmental ...