The Un-Coal. By investing in energy efficiency, we could vastly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and save money.

There is a low-tech way to sequester carbon dioxide: don’t dig up so much coal and oil in the first place. Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative concludes that using the most efficient building technologies for commercial and residential buildings could avert as much carbon dioxide as is produced by 800 one-gigawatt coal power plants. Doubling automotive efficiency — possible with existing technology — would achieve the same. Do both and you’ve canceled out the emissions of 1,600 coal power plants — more than all the coal plants proposed globally today.

By David Talbot

Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17172&ch=biztech