"About half the energy we use in America is wasted"

The BBC looks at the possibility of the USA "Innovating a way out of recession":

"About half the energy we use in America is wasted," says Dean Allen, the company's chief executive.

Half? That is an astonishing amount in a country that consumes as much as the US does.

"When it's free or cheap we tend not to focus on it."

The problem is how to divert the oil supertanker that is the US economy onto a more sustainable footing.

For many years there was not the political will to change. Now though more people here believe energy sustainability is important, either for the good of the environment, or to reduce America's dependence on foreign imports of oil.