by Rebecca Walker — May 20, 2009—Whether it’s teleworking enabled by broadband Internet or the spread of video conferencing technologies that reduce business travel, information technologies (IT) are responsible for significantly reducing the amount of energy used in the United States in the last 20 years, according to a report released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
The report, “Semiconductor Technologies: The Potential to Revolutionize U.S. Energy Productivity,” looks at how the amount of energy needed to produce $1 of GDP has steadily shrunk due to technological innovations.
The savings resulting from IT have already made a huge impact: Although the U.S. economy has grown by over 60 percent in 20 years, energy demand has climbed only 20 percent during that time. And the report’s authors—Skip Laitner, Chris Poland Knight, Vanessa L. McKinney and Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez—predict even bigger gains from existing and near-future innovations.
“By our calculation here, the cumulative electricity bill savings enabled by semiconductors might exceed $1.3 trillion through 2030,” the report states. “Perhaps not surprising, a more productive economy might also support some 935,000 more jobs while substantially reducing environmental impacts—notably a reduction in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions that would exceed 700 million metric tons, also by 2030.”
The key to achieving these goals in investment in green technologies: The report cites a need for about $7.1 billion of investments in 2010, growing to as much as $28.7 billion a year by 2030, averaging out to about $22.5 billion per year in the next 20 years.
The full report can be downloaded for free from ACEEE.
