October 2011, Vol. 238 No. 10
In The News
Source-to-Site: DOE Policy Adopting Full-Fuel-Cycle Analysis
The Department of Energy announced a statement of policy adopting full-fuel-cycle (FFC) measures of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) and other emissions in the national impact analyses and environmental assessments in its Energy Conservation Standards Program.
The action responds to a study commissioned by Congress and performed by the National Academy of Sciences to compare how site (point-of-use) and source (full-fuel-cycle) measures of energy efficiency provide support for meeting U.S. energy conservation goals. Gas Technology Institute, American Gas Association and others in the natural gas industry were instrumental in providing public and policymaker awareness about the benefits of source energy and encouraging its incorporation into future conservation and energy efficiency standards.
The statement of policy indicates that “DOE will continue to rely upon NEMS-based estimates of primary energy and emission impacts, but intends to use conversion factors generated by the DOE Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model to convert these estimates into estimates of FFC energy and emission impacts.”
With this new policy direction, DOE will support efforts to make FFC energy and GHG emissions available to the public by providing data in appliance “EnergyGuide” labels under the labeling program administered by the Federal Trade Commission.
Lori Traweek, AGA Senior Vice President and COO, said, “Customers need to be able to better understand the implications of their appliance choices so they can make informed decisions based on factual comparisons of product energy use and emissions.”
Comments