Higher prices are needed to induce consumers and businesses to use less energy (the source of most greenhouse gases) and switch to fuels (from coal to natural gas) that have lower emissions.
Even so, says Neville Jackson of Ricardo, there remains much scope for improvement: petrol and diesel cars still typically use less than a fifth of the energy stored in their fuel to turn the wheels.
The latest suggestion is that we should cut taxes on energy at just the same time as we are trying to get everyone to use less energy and substitute with insulation and other, non energy consuming, methods of keeping warm.
We should not be thrown any red-herrings that we need not press-on toward a future that is far less dependent on oil, and indeed a better planned use of energy in all its forms.
Secondly, when considering end-to-end efficiency, it is much less energy-intensive to heat water by direct use of natural gas on-site, rather than by using that natural gas to first make electricity that is used to heat water because of the large conversion losses at power plants.
That emphasis is no doubt partly because the cheapest way of meeting climate change obligations is to use less rather than different energy.
The world is less dependent on oil than it was, thanks to improved efficiency in the use of energy and to a shift away from heavy industry.
Its wireless networks of chips, sensors and cameras turn ordinary structures into smart buildings that use less energy and are easier to maintain.
The goal: compact living environments that require less resources and that get the most out of the land, water and energy they do use.
Tanausu Ramirez, another Intel research scientist working on the 48-core chip said that instead of one core working at near top capacity and using a lot of energy, many cores could run in parallel on different projects and use less energy.
They are managing to use less energy, but because they are so reliant on coal and because they are in a phase of heavy industry right now - emitting an awful lot of carbon, and that is probably set to continue.
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