Talk:Energy conservation in the United States

Residential sector
The discussion in the third paragraph (how American households now use more energy despite technological advances) is known as the Rebound Effect, which is covered on Wikipedia. A suggestion is to link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation). Another suggestion is to expand the passage about possible improvements to include measures that a) limit energy losses (e.g. insulation, replace inefficient windows), b) recover energy (e.g. heat from exhaust air) and c) limit the supply of energy (e.g. through more efficient systems and appliances or behavioral changes such as lowering indoor temperatures). Thirdly, are there any figures on energy costs/expenditures for households? It could be interesting to know how much money the 21 percent of energy consumption represent. Lhogberg (talk) 07:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Standby Power
A bit of controversial area in that studies from well recognized authorities may differ widely in results. This is rooted in the fact that one device (say a DVD player) can vary wildly in standby energy consumption from others of its class or even brand, especially as years pass and technology changes. Unfortunately such studies tend to be small in terms of devices tested and far from exhaustive or representative of what consumers have in their homes. Worse there is no database giving an accurate or representative distribution of such devices between households. Thus those claiming to have a handle on the average or representative US household don't really have a solid basis for saying so.

Further clouding the issue is that some advocates intentionally use outdated studies from times dominated by CRT televisions with "instant on" and similar disappearing technology to strengthen their case without commissioning complete new studies. Instead the worst publicized offenders of new technology (often borrowed on hearsay basis) are appended to the list of old offenders and passed off as representative of the average US household.

The result is that we truly do not know how good or bad the average US household is in terms of standby energy consumption. But it certainly is true that poor designs quite often consume nearly the amount of power of a device in actual use. Thus the EPA should probably look at good but economic designs within current technology and then hammer untested and bad designs which fail to meet a reasonable level of conservation -- i.e. default stickers and labels for poor performers and also a "BEWARE I am untested" sticker for devices.

From a Wikipedia standpoint, I am pointing out that not only are all authorities and studies not equal -- but in some cases no truly complete authority and study exists for a given topic. I pretty sure a small amount of effort will confirm that these studies are of that class. Wikipedia needs to give thought to a standard caveat marker when the best sources are being used, but such studies are known to be weaker than might normally be expected.

99.104.105.46 (talk) 02:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)