Energy. (Natural Resources Defense Council and energy)

Anyone who understands how much energy is wasted in the United States has no trouble understanding why we have a Rust Belt. It is hard to compete when so much capital is being misspent.

Energy costs the average American citizen nearly $2,000 per year, and most of that is wasted. In all, energy waste costs the United States upwards of $300 billion every year: more than the federal budget deficit, more even than the entire military budget (which was recently running around $10,000 a second). Germany and Japan have nearly twice the energy efficiency of the United States, where vast sums are squandered in building and running unnecessary power facilities. Until very recently, utilities' investments and federal subsidies for increasing electricity supplies were totaling about $60 billion a year.

Energy efficiency is as critical for the environment as it is for a sound economy. Electricity production, for example, now uses a third of the fuel burned in the United States. Burning that fuel releases one third of the oxides of nitrogen and carbon and two thirds of the oxides of sulfur emitted in this country. Yet there is another side to this coin; being the costliest form of energy, electricity is also the most lucrative kind to save. Saving one kilowatt-hour also prevents the burning of close to four …