This seems obvious.

I was listening to the Sunday Papers on WGN radio this morning and heard a fascinating segment about the lack of energy efficiency by the industrial sector, including power companies, in the U.S. The guests were a father and son whom run an energy efficiency company here is Illinois. http://www.recycled-energy.com/ In just a half hour they pointed out some of the most obvious examples of wasted energy in our system. I strongly encourage you to request a transcript or audio archive of their segment this morning. If that is not possible, they probably have all of the same information on their website. They said they took a 60 year old silicon factory in West Virginia that uses heat to melt quartz then let the heat release into the air; but instead of releasing the heat, they hooked it to an electrical generator and now they can sell the electricity to the public for less than the local utility. We need to craft the tax laws to encourage this type of behavior.

Another example I would like to point out is in our current electricity generating plants. There is a coal burning power plant in the heart of the city of Chicago, the Pilsen plant. When I lived in that neighborhood I looked out the window and saw “excess” steam coming out of the smoke stack/cooling tower when at the very same time my landlord is creating new steam in the boiler in the basement by burning natural gas. So we have one entity throwing away the exact same source of energy within blocks of another one creating it. This is lunacy! We need to capture this lost energy (steam/heat) from the power plant and sell it to the neighborhood to heat the homes and hot water. The only entity that loses out is the gas company but people will still need the gas for their dryers and stoves.

Other countries are doing this. The guys on the radio show gave a great example of a city in Europe. This helps the environment and the economy. The overall economy loses any time there is waste. Maybe one entity gains, in this case the gas company, but the overall economy loses. We need to move beyond just incentivizing windows and insulation in the homes and address the big issue of waste at the industrial level. We should be attempting to capture every bit of energy created to improve the economy as well as the environment, thereby improving the quality of life for everyone.