While almost unthinkable two decades ago, energy self-sufficiency in the United States is now a real possibility.
One sign of progress is outlined in the Business Roundtable™ report, Inventing the Future: How Technology Is Reshaping the Energy and Environmental Landscape. Here is the statistic that jumped out at me: in 2005, the United States imported approximately 30 percent of its energy needs, and by the end of 2014, that figure had fallen to 13 percent.
Who is to credit for this change? Rather than ‘who,’ think ‘what.’
The credit goes to technology, and the way forward-thinking companies are using technologies to reduce the energy needed in production, find new energy resources, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
While the effort to reduce energy dependence is not new, what surprised me was the variety of companies called out in the report for actively putting energy-saving technologies in place to benefit end users and ultimately, consumers.
According to the report, Business Roundtable member companies “invest $190 billion in research and development (R&D) each year (equivalent to roughly 70 percent of all private R&D spending in the United States), including tens of billions of dollars in R&D on energy and environmental technologies. They also spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year deploying these technologies to improve energy efficiency, enhance energy production and improve environmental performance throughout their operations.” Here are just a few examples of companies highlighted:
- Norfolk Southern is making an air-traffic control system for the nation’s railroads, using a software system to help trains more accurately track real-time performance.
- AT&T is using a prepay energy program to allow consumers to track energy usage in real-time to better control utility expenditures.
- FedEx is using sensor technology and a web-based application system for near-real-time shipment tracking for proactive supply chain management.
- Rockwell Automation is combining powerful process analytics with real-time sensor validation to provide predictive emissions values with unsurpassed accuracy for a cost-effective alternative to hardware-based monitoring systems.
Do you see a theme? Many of the leading-edge efforts detailed in the report rely on real-time data monitoring – reinforcing that information is power.
Take a moment to read the report. Many of the innovations are not something consumers would think about – but those innovations enable companies to become stronger, faster, safer and more secure, to conserve natural resources, and to navigate today’s challenges while looking ahead to tomorrow.
The companies highlighted in this report are investing their time and resources in the right places to address energy and environmental challenges, lowering the amount of energy used per dollar of economic output.
And that benefits us all.
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