Profit in Easing Global Warming

THE widespread adoption of existing energy-saving technology could cut US energy use by 75 percent, solving the global-warming problem profitably, a researcher says. Improvements in energy-efficient devices have come along so quickly that they ``now create astonishing potential savings,'' said Amory Lovins, director of research at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colo. Mr. Lovins said his extensive calculations show proven energy-saving technology can save 80 percent of the oil the United States burns each year and can cut US electricity use by 75 percent.

``Far from being costly, abating global warming should, on the whole, be immensely profitable,'' he wrote in a study he described Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.