By John DeFore

The collection of world leaders known as G8 may be taking baby steps on cutting greenhouse emissions (the Union of Concerned Scientists called their recent meeting a “sideshow”) with its goal of a 50 percent reduction by 2050 instead of the 80 percent most scientists agreed is needed.

This week Exelon, an electric-energy giant located in Chicago, made that benchmark look even less ambitious with its own boast: By 2020, the company says, it will have cut its emissions not by half of 1990’s level or even by half of today’s, but by an amount exceeding 100% of this year’s output.

Unlike many ambitious roadmaps, this one isn’t all that interested in solar, wind, or other renewable sources — all together, renewables account for less than a tenth of the projected carbon savings. Instead, the utility intends to get more out of what it already has, in part by increasing the productivity of existing nuclear reactors.

In plans laid out in publicity materials, the company asserts that “we found that energy-efficiency programs can provide the least expensive near-term reductions”; in fact, in many cases the company believes “the energy savings they generate more than outweigh the cost of efficiency improvements.”

Exelon also will build new power plants that burn natural gas more efficiently — a move justified even by dollars-and-cents logic, given the increased price of the resource.

In meeting its reduction goals, the company plans to count not only its own reduced emissions, but those that occur “downstream” as well: For instance, 3.6 metric tons of the projected 15.7 total reduction are to come from the utility’s customers, as a result of programs that encourage weatherization, electricity-use monitoring and the like. That may enlarge the company’s bragging rights in a way some outsiders consider disingenuous, but even without counting customer savings, Exelon’s goal is impressive, compared with “50% by 2050.”

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