Change to an energy-saving lightbulb – create a job?

Energy efficiency efforts in California over the past three decades have created or saved 1.5 million jobs and added $45 billion to payrolls in the state, according to a report from David Roland-Holst of the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley.

It comes as the Golden State is debating whether plans to radically cut carbon dioxide emissions will be a financial burden for California or spur economic growth in a state that already leads in energy efficiency.

When people save money on utility bills and buying gasoline for cars, it frees up money for buying other things from groceries to appliances to theater tickets, Roland-Holst said.

Money spent locally on hairdressers or at restaurants goes further to spur the economy than spending money on energy, which is less labor-intensive and often sends money out of state and out of the country, said Roland-Holst.

The report, called “Energy Efficiency, Innovation and Job Creation in California,” said that if California improves energy efficiency by 1 percent a year and meets proposed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, it will create 403,000 jobs by 2020 and increase the state’s gross product by $76 billion.

California aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Roland-Holst based his findings on household spending on electricity since the 1970s when California got a jump on the rest of the United States setting up efficiency policies, which have cut per capita electricity use in the state 40 percent below the U.S. national average, the report said.

Photo by REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

You know the wind is changing for renewables — so to speak — when the head of Europe’s biggest power producer becomes an advocate — and then even decides to reduce his own personal reliance on fossil fuels by powering and heating his new house with photovoltaic and geothermal energies.

Wulf Bernotat, the chief executive of E.ON, admits he became rather belatedly an advocate for renewable energy, even if his company still gets the lion’s share of its 70 billion euros in annual turnover in 30 countries from burning fossil fuels. The reasons for the change of heart? It’s one answer to climate change, it’s the way the political winds were blowing, and there are profits to be made.

“We had a certain reservation about renewables until about a year ago and then we abandoned those reservations because we recognised that renewables are desired politically,” Bernotat said after a recent presentation to a group of journalists in Berlin. “That’s why it’s the right decision for us to get more actively involved.”

Bernotat also predicted that renewables will replace fossil fuels as the world’s most important energy source by 2050 and possibly even “completely displace fossil fuels by the end of this century.” It was an amazing forecast from a company so closely linked to coal-burning power plants — like a butcher saying everyone would become vegetarian by the end of the century.

Less known is Bernotat’s own personal commitment to renewables — he did not make a big deal about it but had mentioned once in passing in a German TV talk show that he planned to use geothermal power and photovoltaic on his new house. So when I asked him about it, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. He said using renewables made economic sense in the long run despite the heavy initial investment — he had to drill six holes 100 metres deep in his back yard to tap geothermal power for hot water and heating (I wish my wife would let me do that). He said he did it for his daughter, who would be able to reap the longer term return on the investment in renewables — although he too is reaping handsome returns now too. “It’s easier when you build a new house,” he said. “Then it’s easier to reduce CO2. But if you’ve got a house already and the gas-burning furnace is only five or 10 years old, it’s a more difficult matter. Do you really want to replace a furnace like that now?”

When I mentioned to him that a local E.ON subsidiary was buying my 6,000 kilowatts of photovoltaic power off my roof for nearly 3,000 euros each year — and thanked him half in jest for the prompt monthly payments — Bernotat just laughed and said: “Don’t thank me. It’s the other energy users (who pay higher monthly electric bills to subsidise photovoltaic providers like me) who are paying you for that. So thank them!”

Fewer cigarettes get lit indoors in bars and restaurants because of smoking bans from California to Ireland but something else is going up in smoke from a sidewalk in central Oslo – about $100,000 a year in extra outdoor heating bills.

The heated pavement, installed at a cost of about $400,000, may be the most extreme example of an environmental side-effect of smoking bans: rocketing power use.

“It’s warm out here even when it’s snowing and minus 10 (14 Fahrenheit) on the worst winter day,” said N. Virani, managing director of the Mona Lisa restaurant, which includes an outdoor section named after former health Minister Dagfinn Hoybraten who introduced the smoking ban in 2004.

Virani said he believed it was the only heated sidewalk in Scandinavia. And it’s true — today at a chilly 10 Celsius (50F) outdoors it felt like sitting at a warm outdoor cafe by the Mediterranean.

The strip of heated paving outdoors, and heaters in the roof, represent about 180,000 watts of electricity. Total electricity bills for the large business have almost doubled to 1.2 million crowns ($240,000) a year, Virani said.

 The restaurant had to close down an indoor ”cigar and cognac bar” with turnover plunging after the law entered into force. “Overall, turnover has recovered,” Virani said, even accounting for the extra bills.

In Norway almost all electricity comes from hydropower so the extra use is not doing much to stoke global warming, largely blamed on use of fossil fuels.

But think of all the thousands of extra gas and electricity heaters outdoors spurred by the smoking bans around the world…

I’m a big fan of the smoking bans overall as a way of protecting workers’ health and helping some people to kick the habit. But what can people like Mr. Virani do about the side-effect of soaring power use that in many countries is strengthening what U.S. President George W. Bush once called an ”addiction to oil”?