Kudos to U.S. New and World Report for publishing multiple stories on energy efficiency — “Can America Use Less Energy?” — even if all of my interview ended up on the cutting room floor, something that used to bug me a lot before I got this blog. The editors, and stories’ chief reporter Marianne Lavelle, deserve much credit for focusing on a subject that is not sexy by any journalistic definition of the term:
It’s deceptively comforting, the warm glow of the suburbs after nightfall. But a fiend lurks where the light pours from the windows of too-often-empty rooms. The monster within is America’s voracious demand for power; despite the threat to bank account and planet, we keep using more. The steps to tame electricity in the home are known but hard to manage in our technology-rich world. Workplace energy waste does nothing to bolster the economy, although creative ideas abound for battling the beast. A key move may be to give power companies rewards for efficiency. Leadership will be essential, but the politics of sacrifice doesn’t play well. Individuals must take the first steps; a starting place is unnecessary consumption by computers. And if you must have new gadgets, look at those that help monitor energy use, curb it, and even generate clean power.
The stories, with links, are:
Three Ways Businesses Can Save on Power
Factories and offices often waste energy needlessly [Be sure to read the stuff on cogen--I'll be blogging more on that later this week.]
Putting Your Home on an Energy Diet
Simple steps with fast payback can cut family power billsEnergy Costs Around Your House
Heating is still No. 1, but new devices add to electric billsConservation Can Mean Profits for Utilities
States are changing the rules of the game so that it pays power companies not to expandGreen, Not Sacrifice, Is the Political Word
Today’s elected officials eschew sweaters and accentuate the positiveThe PC’s Dirty Little Secret: It Wastes Power Shamelessly
But you can buy Energy Star models–and turn them off, tooSmall Moves You Can Take at Home to Conserve
These gadgets save power without breaking the bank
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
One thing that might be helpful is to have an electrical meter that a person can read to help with the awareness of how much is being used.
Prius has a meter telling the driver how much fuel is being used and those who use it says that it does motivate them to drive more fuel efficiently.
Some feedback from the use an electrical meter would help tell the person doing the energy reductions on whether it is working or not.
One of the standards of a good video game is that there is accurate feedback from the player to what happens on the screen. If a player feels that what they do with the controller actually affects how well the video player is doing, it’s a good game. If there is little feedback, there’s little interest in playing. A player should win when they do well and lose when they play badly.
The problem with making efficiency changes is without feedback, it’s hard to keep up the interest. There should be some way to know that what a person did, actually did affect how much energy was used. Putting meterss on all vehicles would help people with fuel usage feedback. Also with readable electrical meters. I’ve read where an easily readable electrical meter can reduce electrical usage by 15 percent.
The ability to guage fuel usage in motor vehicles has been available for decades. They’re called vacuum guages. Some vehicles, like the ’78 AMC Concord I once owned, had an actual guage. Others merely had a simple light that would come on if your right foot got too heavy. I remember certain Chrysler products had a light on the tip of the left front fender which also doubled as a turn indicator.
A friend of mine has a Chevy Astro van and he gets incredible mileage from that box on wheels because he pays attention to his mileage readout guage. My Concord was the same way….
My point is: the guage/meter has to be easily visible and the person in charge has to pay attention!
A friend of mine has a Chevy Astro van and he gets incredible mileage from that box on wheels because he pays attention to his mileage readout guage. My Concord was the same way….
My point is: the guage/meter has to be easily visible and the person in charge has to pay attention!