Energy conservation: the next big thing?
05/01/2007
There is growing urgency worldwide to refocus energy policies. The thirst for fossil fuels is escalating in fast-developing nations, bringing supply and demand into a delicate balance, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to increase supply. Rising tensions between major suppliers and large consumers of oil raise concerns about abrupt supply cut-offs. In the US, a President from Texas, the heart of the nation’s oil business, says that the country “is addicted to oil.” There are also concerns about an exponential rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere as industrialization spreads and world population tops 6.5 billion.
The semiconductor industry has been preoccupied with its own energy struggle. For some years, chipmakers have been cutting chip power to extend the time portable equipment could run on a recharge. More recently, as transistor scaling limits were reached, both passive and active power had to be cut to avoid incinerating high performance chips.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is trying to become much more energy efficient using techniques based mainly on semiconductor devices. As oil and natural gas become more costly, ways are being found to get more output from less energy. But these efforts have been hit-or-miss and uncoordinated. Individual factories, power plants, large buildings, and even some homes have found ways to trim away kilowatts and btus, mostly by using electronic systems and controls. Here and there, appliances, motors, machines, and vehicles have been redesigned to cut energy consumption and increase efficiency.
While this effort goes on quietly, public attention and policy initiatives have focused on alternate energy, especially biofuels, and on improving mileage ratings for a huge fleet now dominated in the US by gas-guzzling SUVs and upscale pick-up trucks. Unfortunately, it will take years and major redesigns to shave significant miles/gallon from consumer vehicles and turn over the fleet, and to build up efficient biofuel production plants and infrastructure.
Energy conservation throughout the economy may be a much quicker step toward less dependence on imported fuels. The way to do it is with electronics-low power chips designed to optimize motors and drives for every type of device and equipment, and to optimize the energy consumption across all industries and sectors.
Why can’t the electronics industry step forward to show the world how this can be done? Technology to dramatically cut power use already exists and is steadily improving. What we need is a major push to get designers and consumers to optimize all forms of energy use.
General Electric is providing a model for how this might be done with a “World Water Tour,” bringing experts and users together to find workable solutions to meet increasing demands for water supplies with greater efficiency and less cost. The tour will sweep across the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, China, and India.
Semiconductor and electronics companies could band together, possibly led by trade groups, to do a similar tour to promote much greater energy efficiency for motors and machinery, mines, power plants, factories, transportation and shipping, industrial complexes, large buildings, and even homes and apartments. Chip-based products could be labeled with a slogan somewhat like the great Intel campaign, saying something like “Energy Savings Inside,” based on testing at certifying labs. A website could show categories of energy-saving chips and systems, categorized to make it easy for OEMs, equipment designers, and consumers to find applicable solutions to optimizing energy use.
Our industry has invented the future again and again in its short history. Let’s do it again for energy savings -with a creative program to get the public, industry, and policymakers behind a push to put this technology to work.
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Robert Haavind
Editorial Director