Speakers urge investment in energy efficiency
| Wednesday, Mar 25 2009 06:22 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 30 2009 04:23 PM
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The commercial sector lags residential in adopting energy saving construction and upgrades because of one tricky reality.
Business owners often lease, rather than own, their buildings, so “the person who owns the building doesn’t pay the energy bills, and doesn’t much care,” said Carol Tombari, head of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Tombari was one of two speakers at Wednesday’s Central Valley Business Summit, sponsored by the Executives’ Association of Kern County. The other presenter was actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr., star of the green promoting reality show “Living With Ed.”
Businesses are fooling themselves if they think only homeowners have good reason to invest in energy efficiency, Tombari said.
“Even just seconds without power costs money,” she said. “If Amazon.com goes down, do you wait for it to come back up? No. You go to Barnes & Noble.”
Conserving also helps economic development, Tombari said.
“When you pay your power bill, where does the money go?” she asked. “Does it circulate in your local community or does it go to another county, or even another state?”
Installing solar panels, double-pane windows, insulation or energy-efficient appliances keeps money at home, said Tombari, who oversees a federal lab that is testing a wide array of new technologies to waste less, pollute less and power more.
Some of those technologies, such as plug-in hybrid electric powered vehicles that can be recharged by solar panels while baking in sunny parking lots, are a long way from mass marketing.
But there are steps you can take now, Tombari said.
“I wish I could tell you there’s one technological silver bullet. There is not. But there’s a lot of silver buckshot.”
Begley, best known for his Emmy-nominated role as Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the television series “St. Elsewhere,” has chaired the Environmental Media Association and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and serves on the boards of the Thoreau Institute, the Earth Communications Office, Tree People and Friends of the Earth.
Begley urged executives not to be put off by the cost of environmentally friendly initiatives.
“Don’t be fiscally irresponsible. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place,” he said. “Do what you can afford, and build from there.”
When Begley was a struggling actor in the 1970s, he saved energy by riding a bike and taking public transportation, he said.
Later, as he enjoyed more success in entertainment, he worked his way up to more expensive investments such as adding solar panels to his house and putting in a fence made from recycled milk jugs.
Companies today can start with something as simple as replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, or weather-proofing doors and windows to prevent leaks.
“Do the cheap and easy stuff, the low-hanging fruit,” he said. “It’s so much easier today than when I started doing this in the ’70s. Nowadays, the choices abound.”
