Seacoast NRG

CAFE standards will likely be raised over the upcoming years, improving the fuel efficiency of cars sold in the US.  Energy efficiency in home and building construction will continue to improve, thanks to improved insulating materials, construction techniques, and efficient boilers and furnaces.  New appliances such as refrigerators, televisions and personal computers are markedly more energy efficient than they were even just 10 years ago.  The fuel efficiency of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner is claimed to be 20% greater than the current fleet of wide-bodied jets. 

And the net result is…energy consumption continues to climb?

Yes and no.  According to the US EIA, overall energy consumption in the US rose steadily until the energy and economic shocks of the 70s and early 80s, after which consumption actually declined for several years.  With some dips due to the occasional recession, and the impact of 9/11, energy consumption has been on upward trajectory since 1986. 

Fortunately, growth in per-capita energy consumption has been much more modest, although also more volatile over that same period.  Currently, per-capita energy consumption has been roughly holding steady for several years at approximately 340 million BTU/person per year—lower than it was during much of the 1970s.

Population growth and increased economic output are the primary drivers behind the increased total energy consumption of the past 20 years.  But with efficiency rising, shouldn’t per-capita consumption actually trend steadily downward?  Yes, but not when our economic output and economic growth is primarily driven by private consumption—buying stuff. 

For all the gains we’ve achieved in the energy efficiency of our products and consumables, we should expect that per-capita energy consumption should be measurably dropping, rather than holding steady.  But we’ve absorbed the benefits of efficiency by simply…using more.  Car engines are much more fuel efficient that they used to be, but the cars themselves are larger, heavier, and faster, so average mpg has actually dropped, while the average number of per-capita miles driven per year has increased.  Jets, too, are more efficient, but now more people are flying, and we fly more frequently.  Newer homes may now have windows and doors that don’t leak, but home sizes are also much larger than they used to be, and contain more energy-consuming stuff.  Appliances are more energy efficient, but now they are larger, and we have more of them.  Energy-hungry items once considered to be luxuries, such as having central home air conditioning, or owning multiple television sets, refrigerators, or computers, are now commonplace. 

Our consumption behavior is the reason why we can’t expect a 20% reduction in fuel usage simply by jacking CAFE requirements up by 20%; the expected improvements at least partially translate into greater consumption, since it becomes cheaper to drive those extra miles.  When energy is cheap, made even cheaper by gains in efficiency, and the actual costs to the environment do not immediately impact our wallets, we simply use more energy.

Efficiency and conservation are not one and the same.