Even as leaders from 190 nations met in Bali recently to forge a climate-change agreement, U.S. consumers were steaming over soaring gasoline prices and heating bills.
Most of the pain is being felt by those facing higher heating-oil prices, which have risen 83 percent over the past year as crude-oil prices approached $100 a barrel. This winter’s average fuel bill is expected to top $2,200, up from a record $1,433 last year, according to the American Homeowners Foundation, a nonprofit consumer group based in Arlington, Va.
Along with petroleum price increases, natural gas is becoming more expensive to find and transport. Coal prices also have reached record levels, translating into higher electricity rates where coal is burned to create power.
There are many cul-de-sacs on the road to saving energy, though. My pet peeve is “energy offsets,” little contributions you (or your company) can make to invest in cleaner, greener energy somewhere else. They are also known as green tags.
Offsets are often the equivalent of buying medieval indulgences to cleanse you of your environmental sins.
These eco-penances may allay your guilt somewhat if you have an energy-gluttonous lifestyle, yet do little in directly addressing the main problem: how to live a less resource-intensive life.
Although you may have no way to directly monitor this guilt intermediation, with green tags you can buy a third-party promise to purchase renewable energy and offset your carbon dioxide emissions.
Say you fly or drive a lot. Then you go on the Internet and find a service that will sell you an offset. There are more than a dozen marketers of what the U.S. Energy Department calls “retail renewable energy certificates.” You will pay from $1 to $20 per ton of carbon-dioxide emissions saved.
One appealing program called Native Energy, based in Charlotte, Vt., allows you to directly contribute to renewable-power projects built on American Indian lands.
What’s wrong with that? It looks like a noble project, but you may be avoiding the real issue: Most Americans generate 20 tons of carbon dioxide per year, compared with about 4.5 tons for the average resident of the planet.
While I have no problem endorsing clean energy, some of the best economic solutions to an ecological crisis should start in the home – and are direct actions.
When Maren Engelmohr, a St. Louis architect, designed a new home, energy consumption was on her mind. She worked with Kirkwood, Mo.-based green builder Matt Belcher to construct a 2,650-square-foot home that not only will provide a healthier indoor environment, it will cut utility bills for her family of four.
By installing a 94-percent-efficient furnace and highly rated air conditioning, they expect to save 60 percent on energy compared with a conventional home. They also reduced building waste by constructing walls with structurally insulated panels instead of traditional stick building with frames.
You don’t need to be building a new home to reap energy savings, however. Remodelers and renters can lower their utility bills, too. Some of the changes can be simple.
• If you drive frequently, trade in your gas guzzler for a more fuel-efficient model. Don’t pay a premium, though. You may get a better deal on a high-mileage car that’s not a gas-electric hybrid.
• Local utilities and states are offering a raft of breaks for alternative and energy-efficient appliances. Rhode Island offers a number of residential and corporate tax credits and grants for installing renewable energy projects. For a complete list of incentives in the Ocean State, see
www.energy.ri.gov/programs/renewable.php.
• To see how much you can reduce your energy bill, it pays to evaluate the carbon footprint of your lifestyle. I recommend using the Nature Conservancy’s online carbon footprint calculator, at
www.nature.org.
• Pressed for time? Do a “Ten-Minute Energy Audit” at
www.americanhomeowners.org.
• If you are building new or remodeling, replace leaky windows with Energy Star-rated windows and save as much as 25 percent of energy use.
• Your home’s biggest power or water users are spa tubs, refrigerators and washing machines. Buy Energy Star-rated appliances and look at their yellow tags to see how much money you can save.
• Whether you rent or own, replace all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, which use almost 75 percent less electricity. Lighting alone accounts for a quarter of all household-energy use.
You won’t be able to do anything about energy prices, but if you cut your utility bills, you will at least be able to weather the economic storm with more cash in your pocket. •
John F. Wasik is a Bloomberg News columnist.