Californians can ease energy crisis by enlightening world

Amid the energy crisis, state sets an example

BERKELEY

They also retooled the electricity market so power companies spent money helping people use less energy. Utilities were investing in selling less electricity, but they did not have to build 16 power plants andwere guaranteed payback on what they did build or buy. The state’s economy kept growing even though Californians on average consume 40 percent less energy than other U.S. citizens.

Scientists said Friday that exporting California’s energy-saving recipe to the rest of the nation, as well as to China and India, is the first, lowest-cost and sacrifice-free answer to the global problems of rising fossil energy prices and greenhouse warming.

“This was and remains the lowest-hanging fruit,” Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Lawrence Berkeley Lab director Steve Chu said Friday. “But it cannot solve it all.”

Inside Bay Area