Energy Addiction Of Western Society
Charles Hawkins

Defined Tag: Home Energy Consumption.

Western society is showing signs of and energy addict, craving more and more. When maybe we should be asking ourselves how to get by with less energy.

Over the last few decades we have added more and more appliances, electronics and entertainment systems to our homes. While these make our lives more comfortable and our spare time more enjoyable, they also pose a serious problem - they consume lot's of power.

While the main power consumer in the past, the large industrial companies, have gotten rather good at conserving and manging their power usage, the ordinary consumer and household owner is today happily using up more energy than ever before.

For the corporations it is a simple matter of economy - energy conservation can push up the yearly revenue by a great deal. The average consumer on the other hand use up a lot of power, mostly electricity, for no good reason whatsoever.

No? Shaking your head in disbelief at the above statement?

Well, when was the last time you didn't turn off your computer "because it takes so long to start back up", how much is your television turned on without you really watching, do you keep indoor temperatures at a level where you could walk around in your undies all day even in the winter, etc. ?

Or maybe you are one of those "sporty drivers" who can't even make it across a parking lot without flooring it?

Most people would probably answer yes to many of the questions above, and that means they are using way more energy than they really need to. In fact, most people are spending hundreds on electricity they don't even realize they are using. For example, leaving you television set in stand-by mode (when the little red light is on and you can turn it on with the remote) will continuously draw energy and can cost you more than 100 dollars over the course of an entire year.

And by assuming a more relaxed driving style with your car - not the same as driving as a snail, mind you - you can save not only on fuel, but on tires and the rest of the car as well.

If all people in the US would manage to get their lazy bums up to the TV and actually turn it off from the main power switch, we could probably turn of a nuclear power plant as well - now that's something to think about.

Energy addicts

So what's the big deal with using up more power than what we really need "to survive"? I mean, you can afford it so it should be your choice - right?

Well that is true, in the sense that it is our choice to make. On the other hand, wasting energy is something we should never do regardless if we, economically speaking, can afford it or not.

The problem with our western society is that our energy consumption show all the signs of addiction - we constantly crave more of it and we are not prepared to give up any of life's little conveniences that we have gotten used to.

When discussing how to meet the energy demands of tomorrow we have a strong tendency to assume that we will need more energy tomorrow than we are using today - a lot more. And we thus focus the discussion on wether we should build more nuclear power plants or not, whether wind power is so ugly that we will do anything to stop it from being built near our neighbourhood, etc.

This is totally wrong from at least two standpoints:

1) Instead of trying to get this into being a supply problem, we should realize that it for the most part actually is a usage problem (or an addiction even).

2) It is morally as well as ecologically wrong/impossible for a minority of the world's population to keep using all of the worlds resources. Those who think unlimited growth is possible in a limited world are sorely mistaken.

Energy conservation can be improved at all levels of society. The industrial corporations should have strong economic interests to reduce their energy consumption to a minimum. But on a pure grassroots level, you and I can also do our fair share to improve on the energy usage in the world.

The first thing we need to address is using power where we don't need it. Turn your television off (from the main power switch) instead of leaving it in standby mode, turn off your computer when you are not going to use it and there is certainly no need to light up your home and driveway like an international airport at all times.

These are simple things that each and every one of us can start doing right now, without really giving up any of the comfort we are used to having in our lives.

In a longer perspective we will also have to address the way we use power. Using electricity, which is a highly refined source of energy, to achieve a temperature difference of a few 10 degrees Celsius, such as for central heating, is thermodynamic overkill and a huge waste of precious energy.

By simply being more aware of the way we use energy, we can easily save a lot of money while doing our bit to help protect the environment in the process. And it doesn't necessarily even mean that we have to lower our standard of living.

With that in mind, it seems redundant for anyone to use up an ounce more of energy than they actually need to, wouldn't you say?