Who says life does not get better? When the latest energy efficiency standard goes into effect for refridgerators in 2014, refrigerators will use 80% less energy than those 30 years ago, will be 20% larger, and cost 60% less. Savings on electricity bills will be up to $270 per year compared to a 1970s unit.
The US Department of Energy is moving forward with the third energy efficiency standard since 1987 when President Reagan authorized the first. Manufacturers of refrigerators support the 2014 standard that will reduce energy usage by another 25% compared to the current standard.
Good standards drive innovation and improvement and that is something Presidents Reagan and Obama used to make consumer, energy, and economic advances.
Just have to figure out how to get Americans to unplug their old fridges...
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to tell from your blog entry, but I've heard that increased efficiency for bigger models ends up using similar or even greater amounts of energy than smaller, older, less efficient models, so the overall energy savings are null. Also, folks like to keep an extra fridge around, so they are increasing overall consumption, even though they bought an energy efficient fridge.
Overall efficiency is a good thing, but we have to be careful how we use it to minimize overall use. Need more data and info on this. EIA and IEA are great places to look.
ACEEE is a great source too. Energy efficiency creates more disposable income. Some of that income can be used to create more energy demand in other ways and that is essentially your point. For this reason, moving to both cleaner forms of energy and more efficiency is important.
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