Updated on March 12 at 10:00 a.m.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that energy efficiency is not "just low hanging fruit; it's fruit lying on the ground," but environmental experts and a DOE official said Thursday that it's not going to be easy to pick it up.

"It is the low-hanging fruit, but somebody has gone and built a damn 12-foot tall fence around it," Lane Burt, manager of building energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said at a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by Slate magazine. "We need to figure out how to tear it down."

David Katz, special assistant to Chu on energy efficiency, acknowledged that the percentage of the public and industry employing energy efficiency measures is "relatively low." He estimated that it would be in the single digits. "We need to figure out how to increase it," he added.

Citing lack of information as one of the major barriers preventing residential consumers from being more energy efficient, Katz said DOE hopes to launch educational campaigns for consumers and financial incentive programs in addition to the recently announced "cash for caulkers" rebate program, to lower the high initial costs of efficiency.

But panelist Mark Thomson of the New York City utility company Con Edison expressed a less optimistic outlook, noting that utilities run into logistical challenges in encouraging customers to be more efficient. Thomson rejected the low-hanging fruit analogy. "We wish it was low-hanging fruit, but there's actually a lot of hard work out there."

Thomson was skeptical about ideas -- which DOE has supported -- to boost social pressures among consumers to be energy efficient. One such idea that the panel discussed was encouraging competition among neighbors to have the lowest energy bill by displaying the costs. But utilities could face privacy concerns in attempting such a program, said Thomson, who coordinates new energy efficiency programs at Con Edison. Utilities also run the risk of confusing consumers by offering too many ways individuals can control or manage their energy bills, Thomson added.

Nonetheless, ideas for individuals to be more energy-efficient were not in short supply at the event. After the panel discussion wrapped up, the audience of roughly 300 people split up into smaller groups to brainstorm. Slate will publish a summary of the ideas on Friday.

CORRECTION: The original version of this report said the Energy Department has launched educational campaigns on energy efficiency and increased financial incentives. It is likely to launch such campaigns but hasn't done so yet.

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