With a state policy promoting energy alternatives, grass roots-based Environment California late last month released a report heralding “A New Energy Future” in which a massive transformation could cut overall energy use nationally by 10%. The document’s vision calls for saving one-third of today’s oil use through a large shift to renewable energy and stepped up energy efficiency programs by 2025.

Some of the report’s recommendations could become part of the statewide environmental collaborative’s lobbying efforts in upcoming months and years, an official in the group’s San Francisco office told NGI Wednesday. She added that no specific lobbying effort has been planned at this time.

While the focus is specifically on California, Environment California hopes to draw national attention, said Moira Chapin, a field organizer for the grassroots organization, which was split off of the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG).

According to the report’s scenario, one-quarter of the nation’s energy eventually would come from renewable resources. The report cites the benefits of this vision and describes the methodology and technology development that should to be followed.

While coal (52%), nuclear (20%), and natural gas (16%) are the primary sources of power today, the “New Energy Future” in just 20 years would envision those three sources collectively providing less than half of the electricity (coal, 27%; nuclear, 11%; and natural gas, 9%), with wind (30%), hydro (8%) and solar (5%) filling in most of the rest.

The benefits are better energy security and a cleaner environment, according to the 34-page report. How does a nation with the U.S. energy appetite suddenly go on a crash diet? It will take a widespread commitment in public policy shifts and stepped up investment on a scale comparable to the U.S. industrialization effort during World War II or the space program of the late 1950s and 60s, the report concluded. New technology, policies, investment and attitudes will be required, the authors said.

“There are many ways that America can achieve these goals,” the report stated. “This paper lays out one plausible pathway, which we call the ‘New Energy Future scenario,’ by which the United States could achieve — and in some cases go beyond — the goals and save vast amounts of fossil fuels.” It suggests that saving 10.8 million barrels of oil annually; 9.1 Tcf of natural gas annually; 900 million tons of coal annually; and 1.7 billion MWh each year are all possible nationally by 2025 with the right policies in place.

Just taking advantage of what the report characterized as “cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities” could reduce U.S. electricity use by 20% and natural gas consumption by 22%. “A combination of new technologies (spurred by more robust federal investment in energy saving technologies and tax incentives) and energy conservation measures could provide the remainder of the savings needed to achieve the 10% energy savings goals [for overall U.S. energy use in 2025],” the report said.

But the report’s authors — four analysts with the group’s research unit — acknowledge that public policy shifts and government tax incentives won’t do the job alone. The nation also needs to “increase its investment in research and development of the next generation of clean energy technologies, as well as make investment necessary to bring those technologies into wider use.”

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