a hunting rifle shot the Alaskan pipeline, shut it down for about a day, and lost about 300,000 barrels of oil onto the ground. So the first thing we need to do is think about how we use energy, and secondarily, how we can get the energy that we do need, in a more secure fashion. TP.c: Rocky Mountain Institute has reported that American businesses could annually save $300 billion if they recovered and used energy that's now lost between the generating point and its eventual use. Can you explain where this figure comes from, and what needs to happen to make this energy savings a reality? TF: Since the first oil shocks [in the 1970s], the U.S. economy has probably saved about $150 billion to $200 billion a year in energy use. There's still about $300 billion of waste that's out there. Currently we use energy only about 10 percent as efficiently as the laws of physics would dictate. Just to put that in proportion, the energy lost in electric power plants, here in the U.S., is more than all the energy used by the Japanese economy. TP.c: How is it actually calculated? TF: It comes from essentially two different places. First is, as I said, just taking a look at the physics of the way we use energy. We use energy very inefficiently. And the second is taking a look at simple things that businesses, individuals and government can do to save energy. In the automotive industry, for