My New Addiction: Energy Efficiency

I am addicted to energy efficiency. Call me crazy, but I am not ready to give it up. In some ways, I am just getting started. I have considered other addictions. But I don't like any of the other ones. I only like my own, and it gives me great comfort.

Society’s Addictions
Drugs and alcohol are so 1990. I got clued into the addictions of the 21st Century at a talk given by Jason McLennan in Seattle in early 2009. (Jason heads the Green Building Council for the Pacific Northwest.) An architect by training, Jason has the soul of an environmentalist. He pointed out the parallels between the current economic and climate situations. “Both,” he said, “were created by unsustainable practices. The current economic crisis was caused by unsustainable lending practices. The current climate condition was created by unsustainable energy practices.”

Bingo! That’s when it dawned on me. We are addicted to cheap credit and to cheap fossil fuels. Our addiction to cheap credit, after all, is what contributed to the current economic situation (our “Great Recession”, so to speak). And our addiction to cheap fossil fuels is largely the reason for our current climate condition (a.k.a. “Global Warming”).

I am affected by both these addictions. While hoping to reduce my dependency on both, I stumbled upon my own -- hopefully more "positive" -- addiction. I won't claim that addictions are good, nor invoke formal definitions. What I can do is admit this: I am addicted to Energy Efficiency.

How It All Happened
My own plunge into addiction happened almost by accident. I was looking for a business that enabled me to make a living and simultaneously promote environmental stewardship. I looked into many areas and quickly got overwhelmed. So many issues - air, water, soil, solid waste - and so little time. And then I stumbled into energy efficiency, in particular that related to electricity. What attracted me was how easy it was to create, and how much I was personally able to save in terms of both electricity and money.

As I began to explore electrical efficiency, I begin to collect information and “toys” that let me explore how much electricity was being used by different pluggable products. One toy was the Kill-A-Watt power meter. This small, $25 tool lets you measure power usage on anything you can plug into it. (For details, BING! this: Kill-A-Watt)

I ordered a power meter online, got it in a few days, and started measuring things. I was hooked right away. I measured how much power my desktop computer took (130 watts), my two monitors (15 and 30 watts), and my laptop computer (35 watts) . I measured my television set both on (70 watts) and off (5 watts). I then tested a simple fan (80 watts) against an air conditioner both when the compressor was on (1000+ watts) and when it was off (100 watts). I was, in short, becoming an electricity-measurement fool. I measured lamps and clocks, cell phone chargers and waffle irons, my electric toothbrush and even a lava lamp. I couldn't get enough of it. I was, in short, an addict. But it was just the beginning.

A Bigger Power Meter
Things really got out of control when I noticed that my tiny power meter could not be used for everything in my home. I had somehow overlooked the biggest appliances, which by the way were likely to consume the most electricity. How had I not seen my electric stove? My microwave oven? The dishwasher, clothes washer and clothes dryer? Then it dawned on me: these had been safe from my measuring frenzy because none had a plug, or at least one that was convenient.

To feed my addiction, I went searching for a whole house power meter. I found it. A product with the innocent, friendly name of “TED”. Short for “The Energy Detective”, I ordered TED online (at a cost of close to $200), got it a few days later, and installed my TED. We soon became fast friends. Hooked into the power panel of my home, TED provides real-time updates. Every second, a little light on TED's panel blinks, telling me that another measurement has happened. I always give TED a glance on my way in and out of the house. In spare moments, I steal a glance and even openly stare at my beloved, my TED.

The Impact of My Addiction
Like other electricity efficiency addicts, I did all the usual things: changed to CFL light bulbs, turned off lights when I was not in the room. Got power strips to eliminate phantom power loss and religiously turned off those strips when not charging a phone or listening to my stereo. After TED came along, things happened more quickly. My washing habits started to change as I ran only full dishwasher loads. The same with the clothes washer. I discovered a $10 wooden clothes drying rack, and started to line-dry some of my clothes. In my bathroom. In secret.

As always, the biggest sufferers in any addiction are the by-standers. Inevitably they are the ones who are neglected or abused. In my case, it was neglect. The object of my neglect was Seattle City Light, my ever-faithful electrical utility. How had I betrayed it? How had I turned away from all that it meant to me?

And I wondered -- idly at first -- just how low I would go. How low could my electric bills be? When I realized the truth of it all, I was astounded. Before this madness began, my electricity usage were good - even above average - for a home my size. It was decent and respectable. I could talk about it in public, simultaneously boasting and complaining about it.

By the time the madness had run its course, fully three-quarters of my electricity usage was gone, frittered away in the energy efficiency addict's ongoing race to the bottom. I dared not talk about it in public, lest someone judge me. But I cannot stop. I am trapped in my addiction, in my search for perfect energy efficiency.