Best Ways to Save Energy

At our house, we bicker about leaving the stereo on. Well, it's not the stereo, it's a whole stereo system, with multiple black boxes, all lit up with an array of red, green and yellow lights. Then, there's the porch light, which my spouse insists on keeping on all night.

"But all those lights use too much electricity," I say. "It's expensive and wasteful."

It turns out, I'm wrong. Wrong not only about how much energy is being wasted, but also wasting my energy worrying about the small stuff.

Wasted energy

A new study from Columbia University found that most people are like me, putting too much attention on relatively ineffective ways to save energy. The study's author, Shahzeen Attari, says most American consumers over-estimate how much we save by doing things like turning off the lights, and vastly under-estimate the importance of sweating the big stuff: swapping appliances for more energy-efficient ones and buying more fuel-efficient cars.

According to The Economist,

On average, participants underestimated both energy use and energy savings by a factor of 2.8—mostly because they undervalued the requirements of large machines like heaters and clothes dryers. As a result, they failed to recognize the huge energy savings that can come from improving the efficiency of such appliances.

And evidently, the Cash for Clunkers program, unfair as it seemed to those of us who already drove more fuel-efficient autos, likely had a bigger impact on overall fuel consumption than our purchase of Priuses. According to Discovery News,

Over any given mileage, replacing a 10-mpg vehicle with one that gets 20 mpg saves five times the gasoline that replacing a 33-mpg vehicle with one that gets 50 does.

Don't believe it? Here's the math. If you replace your old 1990s SUV (10 mpg) with a new 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (20 mpg), over 100 miles you cut your gasoline consumption from 10 gallons to 5. That saves you five gallons. If you swap your old Toyota Echo (33 mpg) for a new 2010 Toyota Prius (50 mpg), that only saves you one single gallon over the same distance — down from 3 to 2 gallons.

All this is at odds with the comforting message of The Tipping Point, that little things can make a big difference. That may be true, but evidently, when it comes to energy savings, not so much.

Top tips

PG&E, a West Coast utility company, provides a list of energy-saving tips that runs from the major — replacing appliances — to, yes, swapping out incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents.

While all these are good tips, the Columbiaresearcher says that well-meaning public information efforts may have skewed consumers' perceptions.

On a broader scale, she said, even after years of research, scientists, government, industry and environmental groups may have "failed to communicate" what they know about the potential of investments in technology; instead, they have funded recycling drives and encouraged actions like turning off lights.

All this goes against the grain of my thrifty nature, but it may help cut down some of the nagging. I'll have to keep reminding myself when I see those shining LEDs, that if I really want to save energy, I should ride my bike to the supermarket instead of barking at my spouse to turn off the stereo.

Do you have an energy cop at your house? What's your biggest bone of contention?