Federal Directive Drives Need to Reduce Energy at Lab

On September 26, 2005, President Bush issued a directive to the heads of executive departments and agencies to take appropriate actions to conserve natural gas, electricity, gasoline, and diesel fuel at their facilities to the maximum extent consistent with the effective discharge of public responsibilities.   In response to this Directive, Berkeley Lab has implemented energy reduction measures consistent with those proposed for the time period of Nov. 1, 2005 through April 30, 2006.

The Laboratory is encouraged to take additional measures to reduce its energy consumption beyond the April 30 timeline.   As part of the Energy Act of 2005, all federal facilities are expected to reduce overall energy consumption by 2% per year for 10 consecutive years. Berkeley Lab pays approximately $7.5 million annually for electricity and natural gas.

To that end, the Laboratory community is encouraged to engage is the following proactive practices to reduce energy consumption:

• Turn off all unnecessary lights, exterior and interior.
• Limit the use of personal heaters.
• Encourage increase use of car pools or public transportation.
• Minimize use of personal appliances such as coffee pots, radios, etc.
• Turn off other unneeded equipment in labs and shops.
• Enable power-down features of computers and monitors.
• Use stairs rather than elevators whenever feasible.

Implementing the measures above will result in significant savings of electricity and help to keep the Laboratory at the forefront of good public stewardship.