Recycling Energy
For Thomas R. Casten, the road to becoming an internationally recognized master of energy recycling began in Ireland.
Newly MBA’ed and eager to make his mark as an entrepreneur, Casten arrived in Europe in 1973 believing, as he put it, that “the United States was the best at everything.” Then the OPEC oil crisis hit. Casten saw with fresh eyes the smaller cars Europeans drove. He watched in wonder as the companies he worked with developed innovative ways to increase oil efficiency — sometimes by twice as much as their American counterparts.
“I was stunned,” Casten recalled. More than 30 years and the development of 250 combined heat and power plants later, the author of “Turning Off the Heat” is at the forefront of a major new initiative aimed at proving to utility companies and lawmakers that they can drastically reduce emissions while still making a profit.
The Alliance for Clean Technology, as the burgeoning coalition with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups is being called, comes at a critical time for public policy. With Democrats now in control of the House and Senate, there is renewed attention toward global warming and several top lawmakers have vowed to make it a top priority.
“Nobody realizes that the power industry throws away two-thirds of the energy it burns,” Casten said. “It is absolutely profitable to cut our energy use in half.”
By capturing waste streams and recycling heat that is normally thrown away, Casten said, the energy efficiency of a system can jump from 33 percent to 65 or even 80 percent. That’s key, because the U.S. power system has been stuck at that 33 percent efficiency for the past 45 years.
“We have fundamentally kept trying to fix the central generation system for the past 25 years, and yet the system hasn’t improved by a single percentage point,” he said. “At some point you need to think, ‘maybe we need to think out of the box on this.’”
Still, while the rhetoric on the national scene suddenly seems more promising, Casten said the future of changes in energy policy lies mainly at the state level.
That’s where utility regulations are set — in particular ones like the universal ban on private electricity wires crossing public streets. Casten calls that the “single most damaging barrier” to making the U.S. electric system more efficient. A close second: state regulations that reward capital investment instead of low-cost production. These regulations give utilities no incentive to find efficiencies.
While he calls U.S. energy inefficiency an “unfolding disaster,” Casten also said he is encouraged by some positive changes on the horizon. In Connecticut, generation projects are receiving a $450/kw grant. In Chicago, a voluntary climate exchange program is trading carbon credits for $2 to $3 a ton. And 22 states, he notes, have passed rules demanding a growing percentage of power come from renewable energy sources.
The biggest barrier, he said, is changing state and local bureaucracies that are so resistant to change.
“There’s no rocket science here,” Casten said. “The problem is conventional thinking, and it’s the hardest thing to overcome of all.”
