-Caveat Lector-
Californians Are Energy Frugal -
Only RI, NY, & Hawaii Use Less
By Katherine Seligman - Staff Writer
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/11/MN182761.DTL
2-11-1
You could probably power California's factories for a
year on all the energy being used to trade hot-tub
and light-bulb jokes about the state's electricity
fiasco.
But contrary to the emergence of California-bashing
as a national sport, the Golden State actually
ranked a respectable 47th in total per capita energy
consumption and 49th in per capita electricity use,
according to the federal Energy Information
Administration.
"It's easy to say that California is a big pig, but we're
not pigs," said Susanne Garfield, a spokeswoman
for the California Energy Commission. "We do use a
lot of energy. We are the sixth largest economy in
the world. Yes, we use a lot, but our demand has
not been zooming."
Rhode Island, New York and Hawaii were the only
states that used less energy than California per
person in 1997, the last year for which data were
available. Alaska, Louisiana, Wyoming and Texas
sucked up the most per capita.
The Lone Star state also used the most energy
overall, consuming almost twice as much total
natural gas, petroleum and electricity as California.
The Golden State's moderate climate and some of
the nation's strictest fuel, building and appliance
efficiency standards are generally cited to explain
California's comparatively lower per capita energy
usage.
That being said, California -- the world's 10th
biggest energy user -- is still part of the
energy-gulping United States. Peak-time electricity
consumption in the state, for example, has risen
steadily, about 2 percent a year since 1990.
Californians want their SUVs, air conditioners and
two- refrigerator homes as much as -- and in some
cases more than -- anyone else.
After all, they live in a country that devours more
gasoline, paper, steel, aluminum, electricity and
water per capita than just about anywhere else on
Earth, according to figures from government and
international agencies.
INSATIABLE APPETITE
The average American uses about twice as much
energy as the average person in France or England
and about 60 percent more than the average
Japanese. Any American who has ever commanded
a remote control knows the unavoidable truth about
this nation: Rolling blackouts or not, we have an
insatiable appetite for energy.
Americans guzzle about 65 percent more energy
than they did 50 years ago. We're wired, plugged in,
flat-out hooked on the energy that powers
everything from our cars, factories, thermostats and
computers to plate warmers and nose-hair trimmers.
"We have an addiction to consumption, but it's not a
psychological addiction. It's a cultural addiction,"
said Richard Wilk, an anthropology professor at
Indiana University who has studied global consumer
culture. "As a group we all participate and keep it
going. . . . We have a whole culture that's based on
using more and more."
Add cheap energy to the inalienable rights of life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness.
"We feel we have a God-given right to cheap
energy," said Howard Geller, head of the American
Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, based in
Washington, D.C. Geller has watched the nation's
factories and buildings become more efficient, but
not enough to level or decrease energy use.
HUMANITY'S HERITAGE
The hunger for energy is nothing new.
"Over millennia, humans have found ways to
expand their energy harvest, first by harnessing
draft animals and later by inventing machines to tap
the power of wind and water," says a recent report
by the Energy Information Administration, which also
charts the nation's steady growth in energy
consumption in all forms.
It was the discovery of fossil fuels -- coal, oil and
natural gas -- that created the most widespread
social and economic changes. The transformation
was fast and dramatic. Until the end of the 19th
century, America still relied primarily on wood
energy.
Then, in 100 years, Americans went from rural
dwellers who did agricultural work to city slickers
who consumed most of the world's fossil fuels.
Electricity, hard to come by in 1880, was
everywhere a century later.
Just 75 years ago, utility companies thought they
needed a mascot called Reddy Kilowatt to tout
electricity as the "servant of mankind."
It turns out the little icon had a ridiculously easy job.
America was an energy-rich nation and its citizens
lapped up the chance to buy every new
convenience.
DREAMS AND SOCIAL CLIMBING
America began as a land of dreams, where rugged
individuals would have the freedom to imagine a
future without limitations, Wilk said. Harnessing
technology allowed Americans to dream big -- big
houses, big cars, big freeways.
"The idealized American home is the mini-mansion,"
said Peter Schwartz, an East Bay futurist and
business strategist who co-founded the Global
Business Network. "As you move upscale you get a
bigger house. And in a big house you have two
refrigerators, one in the kitchen and one in the
playroom for the soft drinks. You wouldn't find that
in the European flat."
Status-seeking drives consumerism at least as
much as the need for comfort, said Willett Kempton,
an anthropology professor at the University of
Delaware who has studied why some people
consume more energy than others. People look at
what their neighbors have and they want it.
Schwartz sees the country's two biggest energy
decisions as the Federal Housing Administration's
home-loan program in the 1940s and 1950s that
allowed huge numbers of Americans to afford
suburban homes and the Interstate Highway Act in
the 1950s that created the freeway culture.
Once those choices were made, the nation was set
on a course of consumption that's hard to change,
he said. While it might be possible to tighten
standards for manufacturers and builders,
individuals are already living in energy-eating
suburban homes and commuting long distances.
Industry and commercial transportation amounted to
about two-thirds of all energy consumption in the
United States in 1997, with residential and
commercial uses constituting the rest.
PR PUSH TO CONSUME
"When others were building smaller, we were
building bigger," said Daniel Kammen, a UC
Berkeley professor and head of the school's
Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory.
"We've pushed large consumption. . . . The United
States has had the lowest energy prices historically
and those low prices aren't by accident. The oil, gas
and car companies have worked very hard to
convince people that consuming more is better."
The message, he said, was "the better electrified
your house is, the better your lifestyle is. The United
States utility industry helped develop the market for
their product, which is using more power. Lots of
other industries do it."
As of 1997, 99 percent of American homes had
color televisions, 83 percent had microwaves, 47
percent had central air conditioning and 15 percent
had two or more refrigerators.
And along with the growing energy habit went a
tremendous amount of what authors of the 1999
book "Natural Capitalism" describe as the "flow of
material and energy" required to maintain them.
Consider this description from the book:
"Industry moves, mines, extracts, shovels, burns,
wastes, pumps and disposes of 4 million pounds of
material in order to provide one average
middle-class American family's needs for a year. In
1990, the average American's economic and
personal activities mobilized a flow of roughly 123
dry-weight pounds of material a day -- equivalent to
a quarter of a billion semi-trailer loads a day."
The sobering statistics are enough to make anyone
want to dim the lights. Or feel enormously guilty.
"Carbon guilt," said Wilk. "It's so easy to fall into
moralizing about who's good and who's bad and
who's guilty. We're supposed to feel guilty about
using so much and depriving others on the planet.
The blame game is part of consumer culture."
Food is an example. As Wilk has done in his
research, people who are obsessed with dieting are
also obsessed with food. The same goes for
cultures that are energy gluttons.
ERRATIC EFFORTS TO CONSERVE
Californians, in general, have a better track record
at energy dieting -- conservation -- than most other
states. But critics say efforts have been too erratic
here and nationwide.
"On occasions when Americans have an opportunity
to think about it, we did pretty well, for example in
the oil crisis," said Kammen. "But there's no
continuing attention to the issue."
People drove less during the oil crisis of the 1970s,
but resumed burning up the highway when it eased.
Fuel efficiency rates, which increased steadily from
the '70s, were at an all-time high of 20 miles per
gallon in 1994, but then began to decline again as
Americans fell in love, once again, with bigger cars.
So why can't we learn to make do with less? "That's
the $64,000 question," said Wilk. Kempton said that
in his consumer research, he never really got a
handle on why one person showered until there was
no hot water left while another jumped in and out in
two minutes.
Kammen said government policy hasn't helped
matters. The federal government's budget for
research and development of energy technology
declined by 74 percent between 1980 and 1996,
according to research by Kammen and his
colleagues.
"In Europe and in most other countries I know of,
people are much more ready to recognize that the
community has interests beyond those of the
individual," said Wilk.
In California, it takes threats of shutdowns and
commercial fines for people to consider using less.
And still, say researchers, there is more talk about
the price of energy than about its finite supply.
Consumers still want what money can buy and
electricity can power. On a recent morning, there
was a wait to try out the electric massage chair at
the Sharper Image store in San Francisco. A
salesman said the energy crisis hasn't affected
sales.
"You could make the argument that this is all
waste," said David Galvina, a Canadian musician
who performs with his quartet aboard cruise ships,
as he pondered the surrounding appliances, which
include the Turbo Groomer nose-and- ear-hair
clipper, the Electronic Driving Range, the Electric
Pepper Mill and electronic "Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire" game.
"Actually," he joked, relaxing into the $1,500 chair,
"everything else can go. Keep the chair."
CHART 1
International Electricity Consumption Comparison in
1998
Electric consumption
Population (millions) (KWh/per cap)
Norway 4.42 25,304
Canada 30.30 16,349
Sweden 8.85 15,492
U.S. 269.09 13,388
Japan 126.49 8,008
France 58.85 7,175
UK 59.24 5,800
S Arabia 20.74 5,153
Russia 146.91 4,873
S. Africa 41.40 4,509
Brazil 165.87 1,851
Mexico 95.68 1,644
Turkey 64.75 1,439
Egypt 61.67 901
China 1,238,20 872
India 979.67 416
Sudan 28.35 48
Source: International Energy Agency
Source: Combined State Energy Data Systems
1997
CHART 2
Best and Worst States
Total energy consumption per capita, 1997:
BEST 10 CONSUMERS
State Trillion Btu
Hawaii 201.0
New York 225.3
Rhode Island 237.9
California 240.0
Connecticut 243.3
Florida 246.6
Mass 250.6
Arizona 252.9
New Hamp 259.0
Maryland 266.8
WORST 10 CONSUMERS
State Million Btu
Alaska 1,143.5
Louisiana 940.0
Wyoming 892.2
Texas 587.8
N Dakota 554.9
Kentucky 462.6
Indiana 457.5
Alabama 457.3
W Va 445.6
Maine 445.3
Source: Combined State Energy Data Systems,
1997
Chronicle Graphic
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
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