Mind the Electric Gap

Thirty percent of U.S. electricity consumption could be erased through gains in energy productivity, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute. (Related: see R.M.I. chairman Amory Lovins‘s recent guest post.) The institute’s analysis arrived at electricity productivity stats for all 50 states by dividing each state’s G.D.P. by the kilowatt hours of electricity it consumed.
New York state topped its list. For each kilowatt hour of electricity (the equivalent of burning one 100-watt light bulb for 10 hours) the Empire State consumes, it generates $7.18 in G.D.P. Mississippi, squarely on the bottom of the electric productivity list, generates just over $3 per kilowatt hour. The R.M.I. claims significant cutbacks in carbon emissions could be made (pdf) if all 50 states could increase their productivity to match the top 10 most productive states (in descending order: New York, Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Colorado). They call it “closing the efficiency gap.”
See for yourself. To visualize its data, R.M.I. has launched a cool interactive map, where you can see how your state stacks up in energy productivity, and the potential carbon savings it could make through productivity enhancements alone.
The institute is currently at work on a follow-up paper that will offer some solutions for closing that gap. What kinds of strategies should they use?