The package of articles that begins on Page 21 details the surge in construction of “green” buildings hereabouts. Some of the environmentally conscious buildings in Los Angeles are designed to shade the sun while promoting breezes around the building to trim the use of air conditioning. Others employ natural light to cut the use of artificial lights.
These are not isolated curiosities: 46 green buildings are in some stage of development now in Los Angeles.
That this is occurring in Los Angeles is surprising. After all, building green can add up to 25 percent to the cost of construction, yet the payoff in mild Southern California would seem to be less than, say, in the frigid North or the hot and sultry South.
But the fact that it is occurring here is a testament to how far Americans will go in our quest to conserve energy. For that matter, we’ve come quite far, seriously far, in our energy savings since the energy crisis first hit in 1973.
Of course, you wouldn’t know it since Americans and American businesses are so routinely castigated as energy wastrels. So let’s benchmark a couple numbers, to remember how far we’ve traveled.
According to government statistics, passenger cars got an average of 13 miles per gallon in 1973. By last year, the average was 30 miles per gallon.
My first car was a six cylinder that got 12 miles per gallon. My current car also is a six cylinder, but it gets twice the mileage: 25 miles per gallon.
As a bonus, cars today are zippier. My first six cylinder could go from zero to 60 by about lunch time. My current car can get to 60 by the end of my driveway although my neighbor doesn’t like that part.
Another encouraging development that’s often skipped over is the increased efficiency of manufacturers. That’s important because they account for about a third of all energy consumed in the United States.
According to National Association of Manufacturers, the amount of energy it takes to produce $1 worth of goods has been chopped in half from 1970 to 2003, from 9.13 thousand British thermal units to 4.32. Much of it is due to the relentless drive by manufacturers to trim their energy use by doing everything from buying $100,000 machinery that’s more energy efficient to spending a buck for window caulking.
One set of statistics you often hear is that the United States, with only 4.5 percent of the world’s population, used 24 percent of the world’s energy in 2002. But cute as it is, that pair of stats ignores another fact: the United States produced 32 percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product that year. In other words, the United States is very energy efficient. More so than most.
Sure, we’d save even more energy if we lived in tents in the woods, which some apparently would like to see. But then we wouldn’t be massively producing food and pharmaceuticals and movies so critics would have something else to complain about.
Sure, Americans and American businesses still have work to do. There’s more energy to be saved. But instead of being made to feel guilty for what we haven’t yet accomplished, maybe we should stop now and again and feel proud for what we have done.
Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
