Can’t Stand the Heat?

Early last week the Energy Star program people released recommendations on home heating and cooling. The reaction was swift and negative.

I could not find a date on this posting, but I know that for many years the recommended residential temperature setting has been the same as presented there. “The U.S. Department of Energy recommends that home temperature be set to 68 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. When no one is home, adjust temperatures to cooler settings in the winter and warmer settings in the summer.” For a long time it was no big deal. Many utilities have been subsidizing the cost of a programmable thermostat to facilitate meeting this pattern of adjustment.

But for some reason when Energy Star, a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, last week came out with the idea of setting the summer temperature at 78 degrees to save energy during the spring and summer, ABC news said it “surprised” the Internet. They went on to post numerous tweets protesting 78 degrees as too hot.

MSN expanded on the story. “The Energy Star program recommends that people increase their air conditioning by seven degrees when they are not at home and by four degrees when they are sleeping, depending on what temperature makes them comfortable.” That translates to 85 degrees when you are out and 82 degrees when you are sleeping, or trying to sleep. The story explains how it went “viral,” in a negative way, and included another set of Twitter examples.

One says: “WHO CAN STAND 80+ DEGREES WHEN THEY'RE SLEEPING I WOULD MELT TO DEATH.” Another is concerned about the dog’s comfort if the temperature is set up during the day. One example on both sites asks, “You know how hot 78 degrees is?” 

Well, the answer is yes, I do know how hot 78 is – and so do many other people. It was not that long ago that home air conditioning was not all that common. The number of houses with central air conditioning rose from 19% in 1973 to 72% in 2009. I could not find numbers for the 1960s, but a reasonable guess would be about 10% or less. According to Consumer Reports, today “more than 75 percent of U.S. homes use air conditioning, and 90 percent of new homes are equipped with central air.” 

Most of the complainers are not old enough to remember the days of no air conditioning when city folks sat out on the fire escapes at night, and others set up mattresses in the cooler basements, when breaks from the summer heat consisted of opening a fire hydrant or going to the pool or to one of the few air conditioned buildings in town, the movie theater. 

That was reality only a couple of generations ago! Somehow the majority of people struggled through. No one melted to death. Dogs weren’t dying at home while everyone was at school or work. If it was hot at night, too bad. It’s true that 82 degrees is not nearly the ideal temperature for sleeping, but having to sleep at that temperature or higher in the past, because there was no other choice, did not result in mass extinction!

Several news outlets that released the Energy Star guidelines mentioned also that July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. This links the renewed recommendation with climate change efforts, where everyone is expected to do their share – except they don’t want to. It’s the Al Gore philosophy – express a ton of concern about the planet, then go about business as usual.

This entire episode shows why perspective is so important. Without it, gratitude is lost. Technology is moving ahead so fast that everyday life of a few generations ago seems like ancient history. Minor inconveniences become major hardships. People don’t stop to think how lucky we are to have air conditioning almost everywhere. Instead they fly to Twitter to rail on about the injustice of it all.

Driving, The Third Option

Several years ago I was listening to a feature on NPR talking about how people could not trust the fuel efficiency numbers published by the EPA. There were all kinds of moaning and complaining about how the sticker did not match real world experience.

At the time I had kept complete records over an eight-year period and found that my mileage was at least as good as the EPA rating, even though I did far less highway driving than the 45% standard. I ended up giving a brief interview on a later program.

That was a long time ago, and since then the EPA has adjusted their ratings in response to public pressure. But the distress continues.

This Edmunds post asks: “So why doesn't your fuel economy match the EPA rating?” It explains that since those changes, applied to the 2008 model year, “ratings aren't really all that far off the real-world mpg that consumers get….While there are lots of people who cannot under any circumstances get their vehicles to come close to the official ratings, there are also lots who regularly meet or exceed them.” The only exceptions were some poorly run tests by Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai-Kia that resulted in government-ordered adjustments to the ratings and fines to the companies. (The companies rather than the EPA do their own tests and submit the results.)

So if it was possible to match the standards before 2008, and since then there are “lots of people who regularly meet or exceed them," why is it still an issue? Other factors like weather, terrain and congestion do come into play, but Edmunds explains, “calm drivers, those motorists who don't accelerate constantly and who avoid unnecessary lane changes, get 35 percent better fuel economy than other drivers.”

My idea of the third option expands on that definition of calm drivers. I can tell just by watching brake lights of cars ahead of me and the drivers who pass me on the way to a red light that many drivers seem to think they have only two choices with their right foot: keep it on the accelerator or press on the brake. As a result they try to drive the speed limit as close to the intersection as possible before braking to a stop.

The third option is to simply lift your foot when approaching a red light or approaching a vehicle that is already braking. This allows your car to slow down gently (and likely causes the person following too close behind you to apply the brake.) It only requires someone to look ahead while driving to anticipate problems. That person following too close does not have the time to anticipate and is forced to react immediately to any speed variation of the car in front. This is easy to observe on any road or highway in the country as the brake lights flash on and off.

The physics is simple. It takes fuel to accelerate and maintain speed. Each time the brake is applied it undoes some of that work. In effect some gasoline has been used to produce heat cause by friction at the brakes instead of producing motion. It’s pure waste. Critical thinkers hate waste.

The Light Bulb Dilemma

I hate waste and I hate high electric bills.  I know if I replace burned out light bulbs with more efficient bulbs, I will be reducing waste by using less electricity and will be paying lower electric bills.

Every so often, though, the question has popped into my head whether I should throw out perfectly good incandescent bulbs and replace them right away instead of waiting for them to burn out.  That seems like a needless waste.  On the other hand, would the reduction in electricity make up for the fact that I have discarded a working light bulb? 

Knowing that compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) are more efficient and last longer but cost more than the traditional incandescent and that the newer LED bulbs are even more efficient, last even longer but are even more expensive is not enough to decide.  I needed numbers.  So I went to the National Resource Defense Council website for answers.  It has tables showing the cost of a new bulb, its life expectancy and its average energy usage.

A 60-watt bulb, for example, costs about half a dollar, but uses about $8 of energy per year and lasts only about one year.  The equivalent CFL costs about $3 by the table (I just bought 3 for $6 so the price continues to come down.) and uses $1.74 of electricity per year.  If I throw out an incandescent bulb the waste is less than fifty cents, since I’ve already partially used it up.  I recoup the cost of the new bulb (on average) in less than 4 months ($2.00 cost divided by the expected energy saving, $8 - $1.74 = $6.26, equals less than one-third of a year).  Sounds like a good decision even if the CFL didn’t last as long as they claim, especially considering that continuing to burn the old bulb is costing considerably more.  (LED prices for the same amount of light have dropped too, but taking the next step from CFL to LED is more difficult to justify since the energy savings is only 40 cents per year.)

Now I know the answer to my occasional question –another victory for a little research and critical thinking!