How we should be powering our nation

GUEST EDITORIAL BY Jeff Barrie, filmmaker

My concerns about energy began when I was a young boy growing up in southern California during the 1970s. At the time, Americans were forced to pay attention to the volatility of energy supplies when an oil embargo caused shortages and price spikes.

I remember riding around with my dad, looking for the gas stations with the shortest lines. We filled up an extra gas can just in case, and we put locking caps on our gas tank to prevent fuel thieves from siphoning our gasoline in the middle of the night. Few houses on our neighborhood streets put up lights during the holiday season. Energy conservation was part of our national culture.

The conservation ethic stuck with me, even as the behaviors, lifestyles and choices of the average American went in the opposite direction during the 1980s and '90s.

The prevailing attitudes seemed to say it’s cool to consume and conservation is a sign of weakness. Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy speech in 2001 called for a radical increase and expansion of energy production and infrastructure in America and disregarded energy conservation as nothing more than a sign of “good personal virtue.”

In many ways, Cheney’s speech influenced the telling of my energy conservation story in my documentary film "Kilowatt Ours," in which I explored our nation in search of signs that energy conservation may in fact be the most significant and cleanest source of untapped potential energy in the world today.

Through my experiences I have come to believe that conservation, including energy-efficiency retrofits of our buildings and changes to our behaviors, may be the missing link in the discussion of how we should power our nation.

I found many case studies that support my belief in conservation—schools, businesses, homes (mine included), and entire cities finding dramatic energy savings that essentially pay for themselves in a short amount of time.

If we study these examples, herald them and use them as the basis for America’s energy policies, I believe we can conserve our way out of any impending energy crisis.

Jeff Barrie is a writer, director, and editor of the environmental documentary "Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America." He is also the founder of the Kilowatt Ours project.