Hayley Schwartz Wyong Aug 22, 2010 19:39 pm

Hi,

Found this artilce on the SmartPlanet website - thought it might be of interest. It's worth reading some of the comments on the report here: http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/why-we-have-trouble-saving-energy/5022/

Cheers

Hayley

"Why we have trouble saving energy

By Deborah Gage Aug 19, 2010

A group of scientists and engineers recruited 505 people off craigslist to answer questions about how much energy they use and how much they think they are saving when they try to conserve.

The result? We think we save way more energy than we do. Thats partly because we dont know how much energy activities take and the more energy thats consumed, the worse our guesses are.

People overestimate, for instance, the impact of turning off lights versus replacing their bulbs with more energy efficient ones.They underestimate how much energy is used by large appliances (adjusting your washers settings actually saves more energy than turning off your dryer and hanging out your clothes). People also believe, incorrectly, that an aluminum can takes more energy to make than a glass bottle. A glass bottle requires 1.4 times as much energy as a can and 20 times more energy if its made out of recycled materials.

Environmentalists tend to be better than others at knowing how much energy they use or save, but their estimates are still off.

These results worry the scientists, they write this week in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, because if we all took a few simple actions like using compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs, and not letting our cars idle we could cut energy use in the U.S. by 30 percent.

That in turn would help the rest of the world, since the U.S. generates more greenhouse gasses right now than any other country. Were responsible for 21 percent of the worlds carbon dioxide, the scientists say.

Below is their paper. Parts of it wont make sense if you dont know statistics, but its worth skimming and reading the parts that you do understand. They call for massive public education so Americans have enough information to start taking energy seriously and do things that can truly cut how much we consume."

Full report available here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/06/1001509107.full.pdf+html


Hayley Schwartz
Senior Sustainability Officer - Education and Engagement
Wyong Shire Council
Australia
www.wyong.nsw.gov.au