Recent surveys of global company executives and consumers show a growing shift in awareness of energy consumption.
More than 1,000 consumers were asked, “If utilities buying renewable power on your behalf raised your rates 5 percent for the same amount of power and the entire cost was attributable to the higher price of renewables, would you be willing to pay an extra 5 percent?“ More than half of respondents, with a margin of error of about 3.5 percent, said they would be willing to pay the increase.
The survey was conducted by the Energy and Resources industry group of Deloitte Services LP.
“There’s something going on,“ said Branko Terzic, energy and resources expert for Deloitte.
In last year’s poll, most people did something, but their efforts were lifestyle changes like turning off lights or turning down the thermostat. Another group of people bought efficient appliances when they needed to replace older devices, but only if the appliance needed replacing anyway. As people replace things, they will buy new devices that are more efficient, Terzic said.
Still, only about 2 percent or 3 percent of the public said they had spent money specifically for conservation efforts. Those people spent money to weatherize their house, put in weather stripping, put in better insulation--but it was a very small number who spent actual money for conservation, UPI.com reported.
However, while there have been steady increases in efficiency or products, there’s a counter-trend of buying more devices. Computers, televisions, cell phones, DVD players and IPods all must be plugged in and use electricity, Terzic said. And there are data centers that support many of those devices that use a tremendous amount of electricity. So while efficiency may be improving, statistics can be misleading because people are using more electricity.
“You could easily have eight or nine power plugs in your briefcase and don’t think you’re extravagant. You jog to work and think you’re a very environmentally conscious person,“ Terzic said.
A number of companies have decided that energy is a controllable cost.
“You don’t just get stuck with a bill you can’t do anything about; there are a number of things you can do,“ Terzic said.
The minimum thing a company should do is make sure it knows what its bills are, where they are, who’s paying them and then making sure only the amount of energy needed is what’s being purchased by shopping around for a better supplier or making sure the company is on the cheapest tariff. Then companies should look at use, asking questions about what energy is used for is important, Terzic said.
The gas industry has also become more efficient. According to the American Gas Association, over the past 20 years there’s been an annual 2 percent improvement in efficiency in gas usage, Terzic said.
New homes are built with much more efficient furnaces than old homes, and when furnaces need replacing, new furnaces come with much better efficiency. So adding new houses increases the overall efficiency and replacing old gas furnaces also lowers the average.
Energy costs can be manageable both in the purchasing of energy and in the amount of energy you need to purchase.
“As energy costs increase, and they inevitably will increase, more and more companies will become aware that it’s an issue they need to address,“ Terzic said.
While only a small number of companies have a position dedicated to energy control, the trend is growing.
“Having a chief energy officer or a chief sustainability officer is an investment, not a cost, on which you’ll get a rate of return,“ said Joseph Stanislaw, independent senior adviser to the Energy & Resources Practice of Deloitte and Touche USA LLP.

It is not long since observers predicted that the North Sea’s oil and gas industry was entering its twilight years and that production would slow as oil fields began to run dry.
Yet according to the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA), this year a North Sea investment boom is expected to create about 15,000 jobs--hardly the sort of news you might expect from a ’declining industry’. The reason is that higher oil prices and new technology has allowed operators to snap up fields and begin tapping previously unreachable or non-viable reserves.
“New technology is being applied to all facets of the business--from materials to controls, to 4D seismic acquisition and fully-integrated reservoir simulation. All of these require sound fundamentals in engineering,“ said Robert Fast, operations technical manager at ExxonMobil, E4engineering.com said.
His company is recruiting chemical, mechanical, electrical, and petroleum engineers for North Sea operations. “Technology development is enabling the industry to increase recovery and safely expand development into some of the most challenging environments on the planet. This industry has a history of applying technology to discover new resources and extend the life of existing resources,“ he added.
This year’s bidding round for North Sea operating and production licenses pulled in a record 147 applications from 121 businesses. Many of the licensees are US energy companies and other overseas operators, all of whom are eager to invest in a stable political area at a time when tensions in the Middle East have at times sent oil prices towards new peaks.
According to Glasgow analyst Hannon Westwood, 112 exploration wells are likely to be drilled in the next two years at a total cost of £1.3bn. This activity is likely to add at least 1.5 billion barrels of oil and gas to the UK’s known reserves. They now stand at about 27 billion barrels, enough for another 20 years of UK consumption.
Continued commitment to the area by energy producers and their supporting contractors is good news for engineers, as demand for their skills remains high.
“As a maturing province the North Sea is one of BP’s most diverse portfolios,“ said Rosemary Wilson, human resources manager with responsibility for organizational capability at BP. ’It encompasses a complete lifecycle of exploration and production activity, from frontier exploration to development of the UK’s largest undeveloped gas field, as well as one of the most complex decommissioning projects ever undertaken.
“Though the average size of field development has fallen from over 200 million barrels in the 1970s and 1980s to 20 million today, the remaining prize is still significant.“ The company is building a new engineering and petroleum North Sea headquarters in Aberdeen.
“The North Sea continues to be crucial to the portfolios of large operators like BP,“ added Wilson. “It is generally accepted that the field has produced just over half of the total recoverable resource base. Attracting the right people will therefore remain critical to our business for a long time to come.“
As well as looking for industry-specific skills in the area of drilling and completions, reservoir and petroleum engineering, BP is also recruiting discipline engineers including mechanical, process, instrument and control, structural, integrity and corrosion.
Another energy multinational, Shell, is recruiting facilities, petroleum, production and well engineers. However, the company recognizes that several factors are making positions increasingly hard to fill.
David Pappie, global attraction and recruitment manager for Shell International, said: ’The number of people with the relevant skills is diminishing in many western countries as current workforces are rapidly reaching retirement age.
“As a result, demand and competition for technical people skills is intensifying. Replenishing the right people in the right places will be vital to protect the future sustainability of the energy industry.“
A general upturn in demand for engineering personnel has not helped the situation. “As well as facing competition from the emerging markets overseas, we are also seeing an increase in competition from other sectors, such as the construction industry,“ said Wilson.
Beating the competition to the right candidates has therefore caused the industry to re-evaluate working practices and employee benefits. As the North Sea is a high-cost environment, most companies agree that simply raising salaries to attract staff may have the knock-on effect of pushing up production costs to the point where exploiting some fields is not viable.
However, they also recognize that in the modern employment market, staff may often value the quality of their working and home life above the measure of their take-home pay.
“Our family-friendly policies and flexible working opportunities support our employees in achieving a healthy balance between work and home life,“ claimed Wilson. “We have what we believe to be a cutting-edge total reward package linked to individual contribution and to the success of the business. Our pension scheme is rated as one of the best in the UK.“
Shell’s Pappie added: ’Factors such as salary, achievements, and recognition of a job well done are important but not sufficient for motivation.
“Three factors are becoming increasingly important; job interest and challenges, work/life balance and career opportunities. Research indicates that by monitoring these three factors together, companies are more likely to retain young professionals.“
This view of the market is echoed by Chris Cooke, senior manager of human resources at Cameron Leeds, which supplies equipment to major oil and gas companies such as BP and Total.
He agrees that there is more to attracting and retaining staff than simply offering a high salary.

HEV production has already begun in the large car markets, and it is growing.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are the best way to achieve a drastic reduction in greenhouse gases produced by vehicle exhaust fumes, until hydrogen-powered models become viable. They are even more environmentally-friendly than the use of biofuels.
Powered by an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, HEVs are becoming an attractive alternative in the light of the most recent reports by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which recommend urgent measures to curb global warming, say Brazilian experts.
Automotive engineering professor Marcelo Massarani at the Polytechnic School of Sao Paulo University told IPS that HEVs can cut pollution caused by vehicles powered by fossil fuels by 80 percent, “and sometimes by up to 90 percent.“
An HEV is still 10 to 20 percent more expensive to buy than a conventional car, but in Sao Paulo there would be an average net saving of 18,000 reals (8,800 dollars) over the life of the vehicle, Juliana de Queiroz concluded in her master’s thesis, which was supervised by Massarani, IPSnews.net said.
This amount includes savings on fuel, lower medical costs for pollution-related diseases, and carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions up to 2012.
The advantages of HEVs are recognized, but “there is a lack of political will“ to take measures to promote their production, Massarani said. In Brazil, an obvious means of stimulating their use would be tax incentives. A tax of 33.3 percent is levied on cars in this country, twice the proportion charged in Europe, he said.
Massarani said he was planning a seminar at his university this year, to which government authorities, representatives of the car industry, researchers and environmentalists would be invited, to discuss strategies to encourage hybrid vehicles and remove obstacles from their path.
HEVs use a battery-powered electric motor and a generator that produces electricity from fuel. That is to say, it still uses gasoline, diesel or ethanol fuel, but in much lower quantities than conventional vehicles.
“The electric motor is far more efficient,“ especially during initial acceleration,“ Jayme Buarque de Hollanda, head of the National Institute for Energy Efficiency (INEE), told IPS. “When the vehicle stops in traffic, it uses no energy, and during braking “the motor generates electricity.“
The energy wasted by a conventional vehicle when the motor is idling is estimated at 17 percent in the United States. An HEV consumes no energy at all during these periods, de Hollanda said.
A gasoline or diesel motor is inefficient, as “only about one-third of the fuel energy goes towards driving the car,“ and the rest is wasted as heat or exhaust fumes, said Antonio Nunes Junior, president of the Brazilian Association of Electric Vehicles (ABVE).
The HEV is not “a leap forward in technology,“ as it uses already existing technology, which is “arranged in a new structure that creates a new paradigm,“ de Hollanda said.
It is a “more efficient, less polluting and cheaper solution,“ but its entry into the market “is a slow process,“ as the entire chain of production must be adapted, requiring large investments and the certainty of a return, he said.
HEV production has already begun in the large car markets, and it is growing. More than 320,000 hybrid cars were sold in 2006. Of these, 252,636 were sold in the United States, or 19.2 percent more than last year, and about 40,000 in Japan, Nunes Junior said.
In Europe, which has more than 70,000 HEVs in circulation, sales expanded by 56 percent last year.
One drawback is the higher initial cost of the vehicles, although this is offset within four to six years by fuel economy. Another is the limited range of HEV models available, which means potential clients may not find the type of car they are looking for, in terms of vehicle size, for example, he said.
But there is broad agreement that “electrically driven cars are the future,“ whether in the shape of HEVs, or cars powered by lithium ion batteries, which will soon have wide-ranging functional autonomy, Nunes Junior said.

Scotland’s two coal-fired power stations could be converted to clean coal technology under £1.5bn plans unveiled by Scottish Power.
The plans would affect Longannet power station in Fife and the Cockenzie plant in East Lothian.
First Minister Alex Salmond visited Longannet on Thursday afternoon for his first official engagement.
Scottish Power said the scheme would cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at the two stations by a fifth.
It said the scheme would be the biggest clean coal project in Europe.
Salmond met the chairman of Scottish Power, Ignacio Galan, to discuss the plans at the site, according to BBC.
The first minister said, “It is crucial, not only for Scotland but for the planet, that we achieve a low carbon economy.
“We must do this not just by exploiting our nation’s renewables potential but also by deploying expertise in clean coal and indeed hydrocarbon technology.
“If we can reduce carbon emissions, coal can play a vital role in giving Scotland the diversity of energy sources which is essential for security of energy supply.“
Scottish Power, now part of the Spanish-based Iberdrola utility group, said the blueprint would see giant new turbines and low-emission boilers installed at the power stations.
The new “supercritical“ turbines and boilers would burn coal at ultra-high temperatures and pressures.
A feasibility study for the scheme has now started and if it goes ahead it would effectively mean building the new turbines and boilers within the existing stations.
Construction could start in 2009 with operations beginning in 2012.
Galan said, “We are delighted that today’s announcement puts Scottish Power on track to deliver a revolutionary change in low carbon energy generation in Scotland.“
Scottish Power said it hoped that the remaining CO2 would eventually be buried in the old Longannet coal mine.
The two plants currently account for a quarter of Scotland’s electricity needs.
Scottish Power is hoping to receive some encouragement from Westminster.
It would like to see a change to the rules under which Scottish companies pay more than English firms to transmit power to the National Grid.
Campaigners WWF Scotland said that it would be better to invest the money in green energy.
However, the proposals were welcomed by Friends of the Earth Scotland, which previously branded the two coal-fired power stations as “carbon dinosaurs“.

According to a recent survey conducted by leading Dubai-based total facilities management company Farnek Avireal, five-star city hotels in Dubai are using up to 225 percent more energy than their counterparts in Europe. With energy saving being directly related to cost saving, the findings have highlighted a major savings potential for hotels in Dubai and throughout the region, boosting their bottom line performance.
The industry norm for benchmarking energy consumption is to compare consumption to the total air conditioned area in kWh / m2. However the hotel industry can use other more focused benchmarks including water consumption per hotel guest for example. To prepare a level playing field, total consumption was divided by service units, which represented one guest night, four food and beverage covers or ten conference delegates, Ameinfo.com said.
The results were recorded by using internet based software www.hotel-optimizer.com and then compared with similar surveys carried out in Europe. It revealed that hotels in Dubai on average used between 650 -1,250 liters of water per guest and consumed 275-325 kWh of power per square meter. In stark contrast, similar hotels in Germany for example used only 350 liters of water and 100 kWh per square meter, a difference of 225 percent.
Some industry analysts would argue that the vast difference in climate would account for the huge differences, but Markus Oberlin, General Manager, Avireal Middle East LLC, disagrees, “Hotels in European countries with temperate climates endure cold winters when they need heating and due to global warming much longer and warmer summers when they need cooling. The energy output differential should not be three-fold.“
In terms of water usage, Oberlin commented, “It is valid that in hot climates, guests may bathe more often and outdoor swimming pools evaporate water. But in Europe many hotels recycle rainwater which reduces their consumption. True it doesn’t rain so much in Dubai, but hotels could easily reuse bath or shower water for toilet flushing. The bottom line is that there are great opportunities for major cost savings.“
But it’s not just about cost savings, “Reducing costs maybe the key driver but hotels should also recognize the considerable benefits of sound CSR policies and the positive effect they have on the environment,“ added Oberlin.
Saving energy in buildings can start with easy steps such as simply switching off lights, A/C and other electrical devices when not in use. Also turning off taps and maintaining sprinklers can make significant savings on water consumption. For more complex buildings such as hotels professional energy consultants can conduct energy audits to uncover any or all of the potential energy and water savings. Through the use of the latest technology, there are now new products available on the market which can reduce the energy consumption of a chiller by up to 20 percent.
“This is a massive saving when one considers that a chiller alone is responsible for around 60 percent of the total electricity bill for most large buildings especially hotels. These products could easily reduce the total electricity cost of a large hotel immediately by 12 percent,“ concluded Oberlin.