The difference, he said, is important in the fact that 70 percent of energy is lost in the production and transmission processes, leaving only 30 percent that is delivered to the end user.
Useable energy takes in all the myriad things it takes to produce the energy including emissions, the governor said. “In the past people didn’t worry about sulfur dioxide emissions,” he said. “Now, for energy to be delivered to the marketplace it has to achieve certain environmental objectives.”
“Today, we are watching evolve a new definition added to useable energy,” Freudenthal said. “It now has to be energy that has some form of carbon constraint in its production or in its delivery. Ten years ago that wasn’t even a consideration. Ten years from now it will be part of the regulatory regimen for anyone who produces energy or consumes energy.”
“The retail industry has already decided you have to have an environmental component in your product,” he said, adding that some of their advertising is misleading. “One of the reasons this debate has gotten so far off track is that advertisers have reinforced the proposition to the public that useable energy can be redefined to include a carbon dioxide component by just the snap of the fingers,” he said, noting that they fail to mention the cost.
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