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along a long expanse across the pacific basin. so when it runs into a land mass, essentially that wave will kind of wrap around those islands. so it's not just from the direction that it is encountering those islands but it is going to have that ripple effect around each and every one of those islands, none more protected than the other. and as we mentioned earlier, it is a tsunami warning, as we keep saying and not an advisory, but it's not necessarily the first wave or even the second wave that could be the most powerful.

we may see it minutes later, some of the damage -- the most profound damage due to this long wave that has been generated across the pacific. and they do have these measuring devices they have put in place that are very sensitive to changes in the ocean. so this morning the tsunami warning was not issued immediately after the 7.7 magnitude earthquake along this central coast british columbia. it was someday later. i think it was a little more than an hour later. >> i would say that's about right. it didn't happen right away. canadian officials were saying we're seeing under 30 centimeters, deliberately saying hawaii was not included and then it was about an hour after that when the warning was issued for hawaii and once again, less than two and a half hours right now on the islands of hawaii,

particularly helo and the there is a tsunami headed toward hawaii right now.

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it, we could power the entire world if we covered less than 3% of the sahara desert with solar panels. no country is better than harnessing that power than a cloudy and cold land -- germany. how did that happen? we went there to shed some light on the subject. may 25, 2012 was an historic day for germany and for the entire planet. at midday solar panels in germany set a world record, supplying one third of the nation's electricity demand. germany is certainly not known for its sunshine, yet the nation boasts one third of the entire world's solar capacity. >> there's no other country in the world that comes anywhere close to that level. >> dr. thomas knipe is vice

president at one of germany's leading solar companies. he said the nation's attitude toward energy was profoundly changed by the soviet union's nuclear power plant meltdown at chernobyl which directed affected many germans. >> i was 15 years old riding my bike as fast as i could back home because there was a cloud coming and. >> told you don't get in the rain because there was toxic particles in it. >> in the wake of the disaster germany's environmental movement blossomed, with political groups like the green party gaining momentum. >> the green matter and the main parties took on environmental issues in their program. >> one of the key measures parliament passed was the so-called food-in tariff. if you were a german homeowner, you could feed your energy back into the grid and your power

company is required to pay you for 20 years. was it after that feed-in was enacted that it took off? >> yes. they installed them because it gave you a nice return on investment. >> solar panels have jumped over 600 fold. he gets about $3,000 every year. in seven years he'll have made enough money to cover the cost of buying the panels. after that, it's all profit. >> we will make a profit but that's not the main reason. the main reason is that we are independent in the future from all this huge energy companies.

>> as solar has become more and more popular in germany, the cost has plummeted and worldwide it's the same story. >> over the last 20 years, with everybody doubling of capacity installed, the cost of solar has gone down 20% and that has accelerated over the last two years. >> solar panels also have the advantage that you can put them where the energy is needed, say in a new town or remote factory without having to lay power lines. but it has its energy still provides only 5% of germany's electricity and less than 1% of its total energy. remember that world record day i told you about when solar provided a third of germany's electricity? that was a very sunny day. what's more, solar subsidies are blamed for driving up energy

costs for non-solar customers. >> the problem is, in order to do all of these things, you need subsidies, you need taxes. people look at that and say, this is just going to produce lots of distortions or inefficiencies. >> that's right. they say, let's get rid of all of it, the oil depolice allowance, all the subsidies for coal and nuclear and let's let everyone compete. >> still, even in green-friendedly germany, solar subsidies have caused a political backlash. the main solar subsidy is being gradually phased out, but angela merkel made an unscheduled cut of around 30% last spring. some german solar companies have run into trouble in recent years, filing for bankruptcy. >> we have a consolidation phase right now in the industry. the quite frankly there isn't a single company that is making decent profits right now. >> one reason, chinese solar companies are oversupplying the

market with cheaper panels helped by their own government subsidies. and even some of them are taking big losses. >> china has made solar energy so cheap, as cheap as tennis shoes and under shirts, basically. the fact is, germany is actually using so much more solar energy, but it may not be german companies that are benefitting from it. >> the potential for solar energy is huge, but it is still expensive, limited in scale and like wind, you still need some way to store it when the sun isn't shining. what about nuclear power? doesn't it solve all these problems? next, we'll visit a country that gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear, and it's never had a major accident. we've looked at wind and see life in the best light. outdoors, or in. transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it's meant to be seen. maybe even a little better.

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the sirens were blaring a moment ago and they went off twice, sort of same period but the people at the front desk said that the sirens will get louder if the need to evacuate becomes more urgent. >> so what do you do right now? are you just staying put? >> yeah, we're on the top floor of our hotel on the eighth floor. they said that it's okay for us to stay here at the moment. but there are other people going up to the main road, the main highway there are people exiting the hotel. it's fairly calm. the ocean doesn't look any different than you would see it.

doesn't look anything out of the ordinary at the moment. >> people are calm, i assume people know exactly what to do in this kind of a situation. victor s sooardina said in a li over who hours the first waves are expected to hit and it may be a succession of hits. how much information are you getting there? >> not a lot. they had an earthquake here in 2006, significant damage and it was located just a couple of miles from where i am. and they have tsunami warning sirens all over the island and they have signs. this is not just the case for the big island of hawaii but all the islands here. it is fairly well practiced drill. they're fairly well experienced with the threat of tsunamis here. they usually have a couple of

year that happen in response to these big earthquakes around the indian ocean and the pacific. so it's not entirely foreign to residents of hawaii. it's probably something that's somewhat unusual to visitors here but there are signs where, you know, when you're driving into your hotel it says tsunami evacuation area. if you didn't know what the sirens are, you might be a little curious about it. but the front desk at most of these hotels is very informative. at least it is at ours. so we wait. >> it's nighttime there, which i suppose isn't ideal. do you have any sense for those people who do have to move, who do have to get out, how far do they have to go to get up and away from the most dangerous lower lying coastal areas, especially since this is all going to be happening after 10:30 at night. >> i think it varies by

location. where we are it's actually a fairly short drive, not more than a two or three-minute drive to the main highway, at which point you see a sign that says "leaving tsunami evacuation area." it would be a piece of cake to get out of the tsunami warning zone. you suspect that varies depending on where you are and probably depending on which way you're facing. we happen to face west towards japan so i don't know for sure, i'm not a tsunami expert but i think that might lessen our c n chan -- chances of facing an enormous wave. hilo in the 60s on the east side of the big island of hawaii was a victim of a tsunami but i think it depends where you are. >> hilo and kahului are on the list here to be on alert.

augie martin, cnn producer, in a hotel in hawaii. thanks so much for talking to us. be safe. to recap for viewers, there is a tsunami warning in place for hawaii. it is not through the entire pacific and we should make that clear. but it is for hawaii. less than two hours from now the first wave is second to hit. victor sardina described it as kind of an unusual situation. the model showed a bit of a spike in the activity and that caused them to sort of do their figuring and get the warning in place. no chance is being taken here. karen mcguiness is standing by in the international weather center with more information. an unusual situation and people need to take heed and take the warning. >> exactly. one of the interesting aspects of this tsunami warning for hawaii is that the water level

may actually recede a little bit before we start to see the rush of water associated with the tsunami right before it happens. don't be fooled by the fact that the water level looks low and they're now estimated we could see a meter to close to two meters -- the effect of the tsunami from the 7.7 magnitude earthquake. the other informing i wanted to tell you, i looked at the number of after shocks that occurred since this initial earthquake, just off the coast of british columbia, essentially a barrier island. there have been nine after shocks, most of them greatly lower, i should say than the initial earthquake of 7.7. most of them have been in that 4 to 5 magnitude range, which

typically most people wouldn't feel. but this is reasonably shallow. they have adjusted the depth of this earthquake, which initially was about ten kilometers. i see it's about 17 kilometers now. a little bit deeper and you see a magnitude like that, that might revise your estimates of what is going on. the other thing i want to update you on is in regards to tsunami activity. there is a tsunami advisory that now does include some coastal areas of california and oregon. >> an advisory, not a warning. >> correct. this is an advisory. this does not include the san francisco bay area but about 80 miles so we're looking at about 48 kilometers to the north of

san francisco. so that portion of the california coast extending upward through oregon. so they've issued an advisory there. one other thing for our viewers, if you're just joining us and as we heard augie martin mentioned that the sirens have gone off. people there routinely are informed as to what that means, what they should be doing and this does include people who are visitors. a number of visitors, as you well no, who may not be aware, they hear that warning you need to act because in this particular case the tsunami warning means they could see a tsunami wave of one meter to possibly two meters or roughly maybe three to six feet at about 10:28 local time. the initial wave may not be the biggest wave and typically there are multiple waves.

this affects all shores of the hawaii islands. the waves tend to ripple around those islands. a lot to think about. i'll keep you updated on both the after shocks, which don't look impressive right now. >> you've got to keep watching them. >> i think it's worth updating the canadian situation. there is a local tsunami warning down the b.c. coast, under 30 centimeters canadian officials were saying and no reports of significant damage right now because of this quake. again, this is a very remote area, a lot of woods, a lot of logging, sparsely populated, well north of the big city of vancouver. karen maginnis, thanks so much for keeping us up to date. just to recap again, that 7.7 magnitude quake has caused a

tsunami warning to be put in place for the hawaiian islands. people who are in evacuation zones there need to get moving and need to pay close attention. less than two hours from now those waves will be approaching. of course keep it right here on cnn. we will bring you the very latest on the situation as it develops. for our viewers all around the world, keep it right here on cnn for the latest. we've traveled the world to focus on energy. what if we could work our way to

a more effective energy technology right here at home? we may already have done that. down in louisiana off the gulf of mexico, something strange is happening. a few years ago as american natural gas supplies were dwindling, a company called shenier energy built a business to import energy. so you build this terminal to import liquid natural gas. a funny thing happened. >> it wasn't funny. >> it wasn't funny for the ceo of sheniere energy because his company almost went bankrupt. the low levels of natural gas production in america suddenly gave way to a boom, thanks to shale gas. >> how big is the shale gas

revolution in america? >> it's stupefyingly large. >> shale gas is a form of natural gas extracted from shale rock deep underground through a special drilling process called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. in 2000 shale gas accounted for only 2% of all natural gas in in 2012 it accounts for 32%. that's because america happens to be the saudi arabia of shale gas, with big shale depos it's over much of the country. here's the kicker, when you burn natural gas to produce energy, it emits roughly half as much greenhouse gas as coal. >> natural gas is the perfect complement to wind and solar. not on does it emit half as much co 2 as coal, you can turn it on or off when the sun goes down or the wind starts blowing.

>> in fact, we already have reduced emissions. in 2011 greenhouse gas emissions in the u.s. were 9% lower than 2007 levels. one reason was the demand for transportation fuel was down but another major cause according to the government was our switch from coal to natural gas. in 2000 natural gas accounted for only 22% of the electricity we get from fossil fuels, compared to 73% for coal. through july of 2012, it accounted for 46% and coal was down to 53%. that dramatic switch didn't happen because of our suddenly greener outlook on life. a main reason it happened is because natural gas now costs about the same as coal. >> fracking shows us if we get the price below, for instance, coal. >> will adopt it, you will get a

dramatic shift, you will get reduction in co 2 emissions because it's a greener alternative and you'll get cheaper prices. >> but there are definitely some down sides to shale gas and plenty of controversy. here's how fracking works -- millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals is shot down as well as deep as 10,000 feet below ground. the water hits the shale with a lot of pressure, causing it to fracture and release natural gas back up the well. >> what do you with that water afterwards is very important. can you treat it, clean it again and reuse it? do you just leave it in pools lying around? do you inject it into the ground in ways that could cause earthquakes, which is a real problem or aquifers? >> another challenge, containing gas leaks during the extraction process, especially methane.

the documentary "gas land" famously portrayed how leaked natural gas caused people's water supplies to become flammable. many of these allegations have been contested. for example, sometimes the gas that has ended up in people's water pipes comes from wells that they drilled in their back yards, not from fracking. but the epa is working on a comprehensive study of fracking, as it should. this is an industry that needs regulation. >> i think it's very important we get a grand bargain between the environmental community and national guard gas industry that says we're going to do this right. it's in the huge industry of the natural gas industry. if i turn on my tap and a flame comes out or i got natural gas coming up my toilet, i'm telling you, they would shut this industry down. >> that would be a shame for our economy. shale gas is cheap energy and cheap energy fuels growth, from lowering our heating bills to

cutting the cost of shipping and ma making things. it could park a renaissance, creating 1 million manufacturing jobs by 2025. and think about how cheap natural gas could lower carbon emissions in china and india where they are building four coal fired plants a week with disastrous environmental effects, not to mention the thousands of people who die because of coal mining. >> what really matters is what china and india does and they want more energy and they want it cheaper. what we have to make sure is we focus an innovation to make green energy sources so cheap they will switch. we have shown the way through the fracking of gas. but we still need to move further. we need to make green energy, solar panels, wind turbines even cheaper. once they become cheaper than fossil fuels, everyone will buy

them. >> once they have their natural gas terminal up and running, they'll be able to move energy to china and india for a good profit and create jobs here at home. we've shown you many different approaches to energy in this hour but we're saving the best for last. next we'll show you what is arguably the greenest, safest and most profitable form of energy. this is something that tree huggers and ceos are both going to love. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade.

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i'm don lemon, here's a look at your headlines. whipping up the eastern sea board tonight, hurricane sandy. emergency agencies from washington d.c. to maine are bracing for high waters, heavy winds and for the power to go out. hurricane sandy is causing president obama and mitt romney to rearrange their campaign schedules. president obama will be in florida on sunday away from the storm. mitt romney called off rallies in virginia. he'll campaign with running mate in ohio instead. and this is amanda rubio, the 12-year-old daughter of marco rubio, spending the night in the hospital after an accident riding in a golf cart. those of the headlines this

hour. i'm don lemon. keeping you informed, cnn, the most trusted name in news. we've explored a number of ways to create cheaper, greener energy, but experts often cite a fifth fuel as being just as important -- efficiency. what if we could get more mileage, more bang for our buck, for every kilowatt of energy we used? one man shows us how we can save energy and money, all from his banana farm. welcome to the jungle. but we're not in the tropics, we're more than 1,000 miles north in the rocky mountains of western colorado. >> we have a tropical jungle in the middle that's just hatched its 43rd banana crop. >> here, near aspen, physicist

and environmentalist amory lovins curates tropical flora and fauna. there's another pass of solar turtles sitting over here. >> this jungle is a sort of greenhouse that acts as a furnace for the 4,200-square-foot home. using integrated design concepts, it lets light in, stores heat and captures seven kinds of energy. >> heat, light, hot water, hot air, photosynthesis and the pure distilled water and the energy it took to evaporate it. >> there's no heating system in the house, and yet crops sprout here even during the winter solstice. >> it's really fun to sit here while it's blizzarding outside and monitor your tropical fruit and realize you're not burning any rotted remains of primeval swamp goo. >> during the day the house runs on solar power.

lovins sells back any excess to the grid. purchased wind power fuels the house at night, and fully charged batteries serve as backup in case the grid goes down. >> collecting hot water in here. >> lovins knows that most people won't build homes like his. >> runs on ambient light. >> but he insists we can start to save the earth and save money just by being a little more efficient in our energy use. >> the u.s. could get completely off oil and coal by 2050 with a 2.64% bigger economy and eliminate nuclear energy and use a third less natural gas. $5 trillion cheaper than business as usual. not counting any hidden costs like carbon emissions. >> in "reinventing fire," amory lovins and the rocky mountain institute, his self-described think and do tank, lay out a blueprint for how the u.s. can achieve that goal. and he says there is no need for government intervention because

businesses would lead the effort and profit from doing it. >> we found this would require no new inventions and no act of congress because it could be led by business for profit. the $5 trillion on the table is ample inducement. >> for example, we can save money by putting our gas guzzlers on a diet. >> over the past quarter century, they've gained weight twice as fast as we have. two-thirds of the energy it takes to move a typical car is caused by its weight. >> trains, planes and automobiles burn over 13 million barrels of oil every day in the united states. and we spend over $1 billion per day buying that oil, almost half of which comes from foreign countries, some of whom are considered national security problems. >> weaning ourselves off oil saves about $4 trillion net present value in the united states alone.

that money then stays at home. >> so lovins reasons, what if we wasted less fuel getting gas to the wheels? and he designed the hypercar, which could weigh about two-thirds less than a normal car and could run up to an astonishing 240 miles per gallon. it will be made of carbon fiber parts like this one. >> here is my carbon cap, a little piece of carbon fiber composite. >> he has this carbon fiber cap. you took a sledgehammer to it. why? >> i wanted to see if it could hold up to a car accident. >> "new york times" columnist tom friedman's attempts to whack, jump on and demolish the parts were unsuccessful. and lovins believes carbon fiber is durable and light enough to revolutionize the auto industry. fiberforge, a for-profit spin-off of the rocky mountain institute --

>> this is a lightweight seat frame we worked on -- >> -- is taking that bet, manufacturing the type of fiber parts that would ultimately be used in a hypercar. >> these materials absorb more energy per unit pound than aluminum or steal so your cars are not only going to be lighter but they'll be safer. >> if hypercar sounds like science fiction to you, volkswagen and bmw will start producing their versions of hypercars next year. and it's not just cars. buildings can get a lot more energy efficient, too. if america's 120 million buildings were a country, they would use more energy than every country in the world except for the united states and china. a lot of that comes from densely populated cities like new york where lovins helped retrofit the empire state building. >> we were able to get the 6,514 windows remanufactured on site into superwindows that let light

through but block heat, and then combining that with better lights and office equipment and so on, cut the maximum cooling load by a third. >> and all that energy savings also saved over $17 million. so no matter what your values are, amory lovins argues, energy efficiency is simply a good deal. >> whether you care most about profits and jobs or about national security, you don't need to believe the climate science, let's just focus on outcomes, not motives, and then we can turn gridlock and conflict into a unifying solution to our energy challenge. >> we can't all turn our living rooms into tropical oases, but we can turn amory lovins' ideas into public mandates. big business can make big profits. after all, saving energy saves money that goes straight to the bottom line. consider the impact that just

two steps could have. one, move over to energy-efficient bulbs and appliances. a 1.8% reduction in our residential electricity use can save american households $3 billion annually, according to the environmental defense fund. two, maximize energy efficiency in the industrial sector. a 2009 mckinsey & company report says that an up-front investment of $113 billion would unlock savings of $442 billion between 2009 and 2020. overall, mckinsey estimates that the united states can save more than $130 billion annually and $1.2 trillion by 2020 just by maximizing efficiency. up next -- more of my thoughts on the whole energy debate. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role

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we cannot live without energy.

it is what makes the modern world possible. for most of history, our only energy source was our labor and that of animals. that isn't enough. one example, a car uses the energy equivalent of the labor of 2,000 humans. another is a jet plane. it uses the energy equivalent of 700,000 humans. so the first thing to admit is that we need lots of energy. the second is to realize that, for the foreseeable future, we will be dependent on fossil fuels. in 2010, the u.s. got 83% of its energy from fossil fuels. in 2035, despite great increases in efficiency, the u.s. government says we will still get 77% of our energy from fossil fuels. that leads to a few conclusions. we need more renewable energy. today renewable energy gives us 10% of our electricity.

by 2035, that will rise to 16%. we should try to move towards it faster. but even if we were to succeed, we would still need to use fossil fuels for the majority of our energy needs. governments around the world, including the united states, have provided enormous help to the fossil fuel industry in many ways, from building out the infrastructure it uses to protecting our supplies of oil from the middle east. even fracking, by the way, was developed with the help of the department of energy. so it's perfectly sensible to say government should provide some support to the technologies of the future as well. that support should mainly go towards research that would lead to technological breakthroughs. but we should also help these nascent industries, wind and solar, to achieve scale, just as we helped the computer industry in the 1950s and 1960s. but having done all of that, it

is clear that we will still need fossil fuels for the majority of our energy for decades to come. that means choosing among them, and when natural gas replaces coal, you end up with a win-win. it is cost competitive, and it emits half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal. the conversation about fracking cannot take place without considering what would happen if we did not get that energy from shale gas. we would get it from coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel in existence. we were all expecting a technological revolution in energy now, and we got one. but not in renewables yet. rather in the extraction of hydrocarbons. it allows us to extract mountains of natural gas. fracking should be studied carefully. it needs regulation. but we should also recognize that this might be the bridge fuel to our eventual goal --

cheap energy with zero emissions. finally, there is one area where we really should all be able to agree. energy efficiency. it's a no-brainer. it saves money, and it involves no real sacrifice. when you go to a hotel in europe, chances are that, as you leave the room and take the hotel key out of its slot, the lights will go out. why can't we standardize that practice everywhere? an energy revolution would be great for the environment, but it would also be great for economic growth. energy permeates every aspect of our lives, even more so than something like information technology. snz and you can see what a huge impact the information revolution has had on economic growth. an energy revolution would be the next big thing we've all been looking for. you can read more of my thoughts in a "time" magazine essay.