Earthjustice and Energy Efficiency
Over the next five years, the U.S. Department of Energy will be setting new efficiency standards for more than three dozen categories of home and commercial appliances. Adopting the best possible standards for all of them -- standards achievable with existing technology -- would cut emissions of more than 150 million metric tons of global warming gases each year, eliminate the need for 200 new power plants and save consumers $16 billion a year by 2030.
Earthjustice is helping to lead the push to make efficiency the foundation of our nation's clean energy future:
- We're conducting legal advocacy at DOE and in court to ensure that the department adopts the best possible efficiency standards. We've filed comments analyzing the potential savings for 18 different types of appliances including fluorescent lighting, incandescent fluorescent lamps, air conditioners and heat pumps, refrigerators and freezers, and water heaters. We've also gone to court to challenge DOE's proposed standards for commercial air conditioners and heat pumps, residential furnaces and electricity distribution transformers.
- Earthjustice is also working with Congress on legislation to adopt new laws requiring strong appliance efficiency standards, renewable energy standards and energy-efficient building codes -- and to include strong provisions for enforcing these standards.
- We have served notice calling on DOE and the General Services Administration to correct failures by the Bush administration to comply with legal mandates to upgrade energy efficiency in federal buildings -- among the biggest energy users in the nation.
| Key Upcoming Efficiency Standards | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product | Proposed rule expected | Final rule due | Estimated annual energy consumption1 | Potential CO2 savings by 20302 | Potential cost savings by 20302 |
 Water heaters | September 2009 | March 2010 | 2.52 quadrillion BTU (Quads) | 15.5 million metric tons | $18.6 billion |
 Refrigerators/freezers | June 2010 | December 2010 | 1.50 Quads | 13.3 mmt | $12.2 billion |
 Furnaces | May 2010 | May 2011 | 3.73 Quads | 10.4 mmt | $31.1 billion |
 Central AC & heat pumps | October 2010 | June 2011 | 2.33 Quads3 | 13.6 mmt | $11.4 billion |
 Clothes dryers | October 2010 | June 2011 | 0.88 Quads | 7.7 mmt | $7.4 billion |
 Clothes washers | June 2011 | December 2011 | 0.11 Quads4 | 8.2 mmt | $20.3 billion |
1 DOE, Buildings Energy Data Book (Sept. 2008). Total residential energy consumption was 20.83 Quads in 2006. Btu: British Thermal Unit, a standard measurement of energy. 1 kilowatt-hour equals 3413 Btus.
2 American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, www.aceee.org.
3 Reduced from source data to exclude window AC units. Does not include heat pump energy consumption.
4 Does not include hot water energy consumption.
2 American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, www.aceee.org.
3 Reduced from source data to exclude window AC units. Does not include heat pump energy consumption.
4 Does not include hot water energy consumption.
