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Many believe that pursuing greater energy efficiency is a much easier and more potent strategy for decreasing energy consumption than conservation. This is partially because efficiency does not need to overcome the challenge of deeply-rooted individual habits. Rather, increasing energy efficiency means producing goods and utilizing processes that “use less energy but deliver the same or better service. It doesn’t mean turning down the thermostat and shivering; it means installing an energy-efficient furnace and keeping the thermostat setting the same.”1
Improving efficiency may even be a more effective solution than investing in new renewable and alternative energy technologies. This is true because efficiencies not only lower costs, they also have the benefit of reducing overall emissions. According to one expert, “Dollar for dollar, you get more reduction of carbon dioxide from efficiency measures than from using nuclear power, and I think the same [will hold true of] carbon capture and storage.”2
There are many ways in which a person can improve the efficiency of energy usage in daily life. Carpooling is one way. And the spread of carpool lanes in many cities around the world is certainly an encouraging sign.
Online shopping is another way of performing a common task with greater energy efficiency. It is estimated that, as a result of saved fuel costs, “The purchase of a single book from a virtual bookstore like Amazon.com consumes 16 times less energy than buying one at a bricks-and-mortar retail store” 3. Buying from online stores is in a sense the shopping equivalent of the carpool.
To read more about one of the most successful energy efficiency campaigns, see Appendix G, “The ENERGY STAR Program.”
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STANDBY POWER Most people would probably be surprised to learn that standby power, the energy consumed by electronic devices when idling and not operating, accounts for between five percent and ten percent of total residential electricity consumption in the United States. This represents an annual cost of $3 billion to the consumer. Eighteen dedicated power stations would be required to supply the needs of standby power in the United States alone.4 The average microwave, for example, is idle more than 99 percent of the time and expends more energy simply running its clock as it does heating food. According to some estimates, “Using the most efficient designs could reduce average household standby-power consumption by 72%….Applying this reduction [among the richest developed nations] would reduce [global] carbon-dioxide emissions by nearly 0.5 percent.” Such a reduction would be equivalent to the emissions of 18 million cars.5 The problem of wasted standby power has been created by the transition from “an electromechanical world that’s on and off to an electronic world that’s never off.” Only recently have governments begun to tackle this problem, led once again by the state of California. The California Energy Commission established the first rigorous standby power standards in the world in January 2006. As a result, new technologies are being developed to further enhance standby performance. Individual consumers can contribute by unplugging electronic devices when they are not being used.6 |
2 Browne; Harvey, “Science Rises to the Challenge”
3 Cooper, “Energy and the Environment,” 173
Picture, Source: The Economist