Supreme Court Message Makes Energy Conservation Hit Home

by Mark Daily

If the recent US Supreme Court decision on CO2 and Greenhouse gas regulation is as serious as everyone says it is, energy conservation just got a huge boost. Sarah Kessinger, writing for the Harris News Service reports that the April 3rd US Supreme Court decision labeling CO2 as an air quality component will have long term planning and financial impacts on the members of the Sunflower Generation and Transmission Cooperative. That could be the understatement of the year. This impact will be felt by all generation and transmission companies as well as distribution utilities across the nation.

While several states including California and Vermont have passed laws regulating CO2 and other green house gaze emissions, the EPA and most states have refused to accept that these gases should be a part of air quality regulation. Now the verdict is in. By a 5-4 vote the US Supreme Court majority opinion from Justice Stevens says, "Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do."

The auto industry tipped the feds hand by challenging several states regulation of automobile emissions and CAFÉ mileage standards. Reminds me of the old saying, “ be careful what you ask for, you might just get it”. While the next move is clearly the EPA’s, executives in the electric utility industry as well as the auto industry are noticeably shaken by the ruling. With over 200 coal fired power plants on the drawing boards or in the regulatory and planning pipeline, the implications are that any company producing CO2 or any of the identified green house gases must now factor in new costs. These costs will certainly expand from energy conservation and demand side management programs to carbon sequestration, carbon taxes and power plant system modifications. For the nation as a whole and for consumers specifically, this means utility bills are going up.

Some expect the increase to hit pocket books gradually as new regulations trickle into efinto effect. Others worry that the 5-4 ruling will have an immediate impact on financing for investments and construction throughout all industries related to fossil fuels. Amory Lovin’s "Negawatt" campaign may finally get that push over the top to make energy conservation and energy management the mainstream tools saving corporate as well as home owner budgets.
So, now, what will you do? Will you get that energy audit now, or wait until your rates climb faster than today. Have your rates gone up? Do you know for sure? Why not? Experts estimate that simply becoming more aware of your home energy use will knock off 4% from your bill. So, you don’t necessarily have to buy anything. All you have to do is read, decide and act. Well, of course its not that easy is it? Otherwise we would have all done it already. The best and cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas and CO2 production is to avoid energy use. The only way to avoid energy use is to turn whatever it is that is using energy off or find similar equipment that uses less energy. There really are no other answers, no magic boxes or potions. Reducing CO2 and green house gas production requires action. Since we as a nation tend to avoid difficult decisions until failing to act becomes more expensive than acting, this will be a difficult time for everyone.

My advice is to get smart fast. Find out what eats energy at your house. You don’t have to make changes or take action or buy new appliances or burn down your house. Just, start learning about your home’s energy appetite. Find out how many kilowatt hours (kWh) hours per month and per year are used at your house. If you use gas, find out how many gallons of propane or therms or CCF’s of natural gas your house uses. Call your utility company if you don’t keep your own records. Utility companies always keep the last six months of energy use data and many of them keep longer records. Home energy auditors typically check out the last three years of energy use data before they make their report. So, try to find three years worth of data. You look at three years of data to smooth out mistakes in management (e.g. someone left the heater on and the windows open during spring break vacation last year) or unusually cold or hot seasonal temperatures. Convert your three years of data into monthly averages. This then, becomes your performance yard stick.

Now with your total average monthly electricity and gas use numbers in hand find out what appliances and equipment eat that energy. Go room by room and make an energy use inventory. List gas appliances as well as electricity using appliances. Start in the kitchen since that usually makes the longest list of energy using devices. Then hit the laundry or utility room, to get the water and space heating equipment. Then inventory the main living or family room where all of the gadgets and entertainment equipment live. Now you are almost home free. Bedrooms and bathrooms generally don’t have much to list .

Get everything. If you have a six bulb vanity light in the master bathroom check to see if all six bulbs are the same wattage and list the total watts for that appliance. Don’t worry about how much total monthly energy these pieces of equipment use just yet. Simply make a list. Why just the list? Two reasons. Figuring out how much energy things use per month can be a real pain in the neck and you don’t want to give up before you make a list of everything in the house, and you can use the same list for your insurance company if you ever have to prove what was stolen or burned up.

Once you have your list, find a comfortable chair with good lighting, grab a calculator and put on about two hours worth of your favorite music. Hey, if this was easy we would have done it during the last rate increase.

Now you have to figure out how long each piece of equipment is on in a typical month. I actually like to do this on a computer spreadsheet, even though it uses energy, just because I like to play with the numbers. I like to see what might happen if I changed every 100 watt incandescent bulb in the house to a comparable light output 25 watt compact fluorescent bulb. Or, check to see how much difference it makes if the kids watch one hour of TV instead of twenty - things like that.

Lots of equipment goes on and off without you doing anything. It is hard to estimate costs for some of these appliances. Web sites offer handy averages for a family of four or "typical" energy use figures for many of these standard appliances. Refrigeration, water wells, computer equipment, heating systems, and water heaters are just some of the more challenging appliances to quantify.

So, now add them up. If your total electricity or gas use is more than ten percent off your totals, look at your list again and see if you made any obvious mistakes, like forgetting to convert watts to kilowatts or minutes to hours. If you used a spreadsheet, you can sort by your estimated kWh, gallons, or CCF to get the big users at the head of the list. See if you agree. If that closet light bulb that is never on, ends up at the top of the list, see what you did wrong, fix it and re-sort. Keep going like this until you are in that 10 percent range. If you still aren’t there, look at those appliance for which you used national averages. If those averages are for a family of four and its just you and your cat, cut those numbers down by three quarters. If you used average family of four numbers and you live with all of your relatives in the same house, do a head count and adjust the family of four numbers to make sense to your situation. Now, look at the total again. You should be close.

I have been in hundreds of homes and always came up with an inventory number that fits the energy bill records in a way agreeable to the home owner. So, keep trying.

The reward is that you now have a feel for what you really pay for in energy use. Now you can start making informed management decisions about your house and how you use energy.

Maybe you can quit yelling at the kids to turn the lights off and start yelling at your spouse to quit turning up the heat. Or, maybe you don’t really need to keep your Arc Welder on stand buy to make that quick repair. Do you have something like a hot tub or a engine block heater or a stock tank heater that could be put on a timer? Now you can estimate your savings for every hour that you keep something off.

Don’t forget to check out your building's insulation package. Insulation levels, window and door quality and weatherstripping all determine how many hours your heater runs. The DOE recently announced grants available for weatherizing your home.

If you can’t stand the thought of your neighbors accusing you of being green or a liberal, you can defend your actions under recent homeland security issues. Or, maybe you can say you are supporting the troops by trying to avoid foreign wars over energy. It really doesn’t matter what your political or religious convictions are, the money you save could go towards anything you like, you get to chose. But, if you don’t do anything, the US Supreme Court decision means that more and more of your hard earned money is going to utility companies.