Boosting energy efficiency could save U.S. $1.2 Trillion

McKinsey & Co. have released another report about climate change, but this time they're putting it in motivating terms:  money, money, money.  The consulting firm has calculated the amount of cash the country could save over the next decade if we fully commit to becoming more energy efficient, and the amount is huge:  $1.2 trillion.

Of course, this savings can only be accomplished through a large investment in weatherizing homes, retrofitting buildings, efficiency education and government initiatives, etc. - costing about $520 billion over that same decade.  So, you're actually looking at a net savings of $700 billion, but that's still a nice big incentive to cut our energy consumption and help the planet at the same time.

The firm states that homes and businesses could trim 28 percent off their current energy bills and industries could trim 20 percent.  The report doesn't factor in transportation, just "stationary" uses of energy, but the study shows that through that large investment in efficiency, the country could slash 23 percent of its energy demand by 2020 and prevent the emissions of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases yearly, the equivalent of taking the U.S. passenger fleet off the road.

As ecogeeks already know, a large portion of wasted energy is consumed by vampire power loads.  The study revealed that efficiency standards that prevent our electronics from sucking energy while not in use could lead to energy savings equal to the yearly electricity consumption of the Netherlands.

Click here to read the full report.