"It's gone before you even knew it was there: As energy is unlocked from fuels at power plants, two-thirds of the energy consumed to create electricity is lost. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that conversion efficiency will never be 100 percent, because heat is lost at every step of the conversion process. But new technologies may be able to greatly increase conversion efficiency, moving from an overall rate of 36 percent to closer to 50 percent."
They also point out that this low-hanging fruit, doing what comes naturally:
""High fossil fuel prices will drive technology and innovation, because they respond to price signals," said Frank A. Wolak, an economist at Stanford. "Technology can improve efficiency by working the margin, gaining 10 to 15 percent. That's money."
A week after they published Ben Stein's silliness, the New York Times looks at the impact of efficiency.
Great read here at: NYT