Efficiency Innovations

SMART GRID - NEGAWATT - LED - ENERGY SAVINGS - SHIPPING - ELECTRIC TRUCKS
 
Efficiency innovation is, simply put, doing more--"getting more"--with less. For instance, the notion of the "negawatt": a unit of energy that is NOT created (when it otherwise would have been) due to energy savings and efficiency (and the follow up notion of an arbitrage market on which these negawatts might then be exchanged). New smart grid technology utilizes two way digital communication to manage electricity more efficiently, intelligently monitoring and controlling appliances at consumers' homes in order to increase efficiency and reduce cost. A dish washer is automatically run in the middle of the night (during off peak hours), negawatts are generated, energy is saved. Another example: LEDs create light with less energy expenditure (thus lowering energy consumption) and have a longer lifespan than traditional lighting sources.
 
Of course energy efficiency doesn't just involve pushing electricity around in a more intelligent fashion--moving physical product from point A to point B more efficiently is also a huge part of the process. A freight train can move a ton of freight 436 miles on a single gallon of fuel; and hence, if more freight is moved by train, we have an obvious, tremendous reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The use of zero-emission electric trucks, in place of the thousands of traditional diesel vehicles currently in use, would dramatically improve the quality of air in all urban environments. And the value chain becomes ever more optimized.