Could New York City Cut Emissions 90% By 2050?

First time accepted submitter jscheib writes "According to Will Oremus in Slate, a report released today finds that 'New York City could slash its emissions by a whopping 90 percent by 2050 without any radical new technologies, without cutting back on creature comforts, and maybe even without breaking its budget.' The key elements are insulating buildings to cut energy needs, converting to (mostly) electric equipment, and then using carbon-free electricity to supply the small amount of energy still needed. Oremus notes that including energy savings would reduce the net price tag to something more like $20 billion."

Comments

Re:It's Been Done Elsewhere!

[jklovanc]

According to this article Detroit power consumption has dropped by 10% in eleven years. I would not call that plummeting..

38% energy savings

[Namarrgon]

That's what they achieved when they retrofitted the Empire State Building. Paid for itself in only 3 years, and now delivers $4.4M savings annually.

Insulation, smart energy controls etc do cost money, but the energy savings can more than pay for it over the life of the building. Better designs can save up to 69% of energy costs. And there's a lot of ripple-effect savings too, by reducing emissions and freeing up capital.

Of course, getting completely off coal, oil & gas will eventually cut emissions to zero, but there's a more immediate & guaranteed payoff simply by improving efficiencies.