National Academies Confirms What the American Gas Association Has Been Saying for Years – Full-Fuel-Cycle is the Measurement Standard of Choice!

May 27, 2009 by Dan Gibson · Leave a comment
Filed under: Natural Gas, energy

The big news in the natural gas world today is a report released by the National Academy of Sciences that advocates that “the U.S. Department of Energy should consider gradually changing its system of setting appliance energy-efficiency standards to a full-fuel-cycle measurement, which takes into account both the energy used to operate an appliance, as well as upstream energy costs – energy consumed in producing and distributing fuels from coal, oil, and natural gas, and energy lost in generating and delivering electric power.”

What does that mean? What it means is the same thing AGA has been saying for years and reiterates in our press release today praising the National Academies.

Natural gas is highly efficient. To pull from the release, 70 percent of the total amount of fuels used in producing, generating and transmitting electricity is lost by the time that electricity reaches a customer. By contrast, producing and delivering natural gas directly loses only about 10 percent of its usable energy.

That’s obviously a big difference.

The release goes on to underscore how the study echoes the ‘carbon footprint labeling’ provisions that were recently included in the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, which would expand the existing Federal Trade Commission EnergyGuide labeling program for home appliances to include carbon footprint information.

The carbon label is a big deal and Dave sums it well when he says, “This study recommends a change in the way that we look at energy efficiency in our appliances and it should be expanded to include building codes that also measure energy efficiency.”

It’s great to hear other people get what AGA has been saying for years. I know we have a few DOE people that browse this blog. What do you guys think? Is the National Academies a reliable enough source to Full-Fuel-Cycle Measurement Approach. Just asking.