Why we save and not save energy?
Why do we buy a Toyota Prius but do not take as much care to make our homes more efficient?Don’t misunderstand me, I have nothing but admiration for the Toyota Prius. But let’s look at the numbers. Switching from a standard midsize car to the Prius can reduce CO2 emissions from 7.5 tons to 4.4 tons per year (a 3.1 savings).But consider this: A standard four-bedroom house occupied by four people in Massachusetts can produce 53 tons of CO2 a year. What if we took steps to make the home’s heating and cooling system more efficient, installed efficient lighting, used ENERGY STAR appliances, and took steps to reduce energy used for hot water? If we made all these changes, the same house could produce 30 tons of CO2 a year (savings of 23 tons).So why do we buy and proudly drive the Prius but do not spend nearly as much on making our home more efficient? I think that there are at least three reasons. The first is that we remember the price of gas at the pump, and seeing the gas price every time we fuel-up makes it more psychologically painful to drive a less efficient car. The second is that when we drive a Prius it acts as a constant reminder of how little we spend on gas compared to all the cars driving around us–providing us with positive comparison. The third is that we project a positive social image when other people see us driving a socially conscious car.Homes don’t have any of these features. We don’t remember the price of heating, lighting, etc. We don’t see other people and think about how much they are paying to heat and cool their homes, and we don’t get any social bonus points for making our homes more efficient.What is the point of all of this? I think we can look at the success of the Prius, and by understanding the underpinning of its success, we can design incentives so that people start caring about making their homes more efficient.
I think we remember heating/lighting every month. I suspect it’s a lot bigger hassle to upgrade your home (e.g., having contractors come in to replace your old windows or HVAC system, have delivery people come out).
Also, I suspect there’s something else going on at the margins. My guess is (most) people switch to hybrids at a point where they need to replace their car anyway. If your stove and refrigerator still work, upgrading those seems frivolous and wasteful, especially if you don’t see the marginal “damage” they’re doing to your bill. That’s the part that we don’t see.
Finally, it’s not clear that other people would value the changes you make to your house. The extra cost of a hybrid relative to a regular car probably persists in the secondhand market; however, nobody who repurchases your house will care because those extra energy costs are not rolled into the loan. You have to rely upon the people moving in and remodeling–already strapped for cash–to do the upgrades. But, when your remodel/redesign goes overbudget, it’s easier to control the costs of the fixed price items (stove, refrigerator, windows) than it is the variable costs (labor).
It is relative to where you live. I live in Texas. I am surrounded by gas guzzling extended cabs trucks and Hummers.
4) Default can be the forth and most important factor.
People buy cars every few years. But one has to come from the couch and look for how to change the house.
5) Availability is also a factor. Beleive me I have no idea whom should I call to change house. (one may ask why it is so in first place).
more: car manufacturers have a strong incentive to make us aware of the energy thing. Toyota’s marginal revenue from us buying Prius is higher than the price differences, whereas, the handymen make only the working fee with no side value of selling a car.
A car is also framed as a flexible decision.
You certainly are right about the “status” value of driving a Prius. My husband and I don’t drive at all, have no car, but we are given no tax incentives to walk. Nobody ever proposes an energy tax credit for people who never drive. There’s no “special” entrance at the Ikea store, just for us. As a matter of fact, we have a hard time even getting to most of the stores, surrounded as they are by no-sidewalk, football field sized parking lots! We put in an energy efficient furnace, 2 years ago. We were told to expect 1/3 less gas usage. WE GOT 45% LESS! I don’t think folks know just how much they might save by installing energy efficent appliances.
Dan,
Here’s another nice example for the FREE! effect:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522504
I think people drive Priuses (Prii?) mostly to project an image. What I wonder about is why hybrids get such special treatment (parking, HOV rights, etc.) when an equally or more efficient conventional car does not. The conventional car will cost a lot less in the long run, not having thousands of dollars worth of batteries to replace in a few years.
We ‘save’ at the gas pump because the shocking prices confront us everytime we fill up. We don’t ‘save’ at home because we’re not as aware of the costs since we pay our utilities once a month and then we forget until next time.
Also, if we were to have home energy savings made more chic by the media with a few really good looking models and some glitzy media, we might get some energy savings at home. Until home energy savings is made ‘sexy’ by the media, it won’t happen on a mass scale.
People drive Ford F-150 to load up their grocery at Whole Foods. You ask them why, they say they try to make the best purchase decision…assuming a good truck in the Truck category, and assuming organic quality food for their health. It’s “irrational” only when we combine a few rational acts together.
FWIW, I drive a Prius. My electric bill was $11 for February my natural gas bill was $25. I’d guess about $40 for gasoline, but can’t be sure.
Do you suppose that Priuses sell so well in Southern California because we don’t have those high heating costs? Those of us on the coasts don’t have A/C either.
(I’m actually put off that this post didn’t really have the data. You don’t know our utility bills.)
Having recently signed the papers for a Ford Escape Hybrid, I am fully aware of both the value and the vacuity of symbolism. There was definitely a financial premium for making such an obvious political statement (one that was however, offset by the intrinsic value of the hybrid).
I have tried to be consistent in my personal life, but I understand it takes a conscious effort to maintain that consistency. I think for the majority of people, the value of maintaining that consistency is not worth the cost, emotionally or financially. Why actually join a movement, when you can feel good by just wearing the button?! I think that is one of the most predictable irrationalities of all.
I am addicted to save energy and hence save the environment. Every small contributions help like switching off all unused lights to switching off all unused appliances like monitors, microwaves at the wall switch level, help.
Continue the good works by keeping the need to save the environment by all means.
If you’d like to see an academic study
fleshing out some of Dan’s points please
go to mek1966.googlepages.com/greens.pdf
Environmental economists have noted that there are 2 payoffs from purchasing a “green product”. An environmentalist gains private pleasure from “doing the right thing” and in the case of a Prius since you drive it in public this symbol
helps to burnish your reputation in the community. This is a type of virtuous conspicuous consumption. Veblen was wrong.
Buenas noches:
Personalmente creo que vosotros pulis demasiados recursos porque os salen excesivamente baratos. Es mas, pienso que sois unos posturitas que funcionais segun pita la corriente social. Coño, pensad un poco individualmente y sed coherentes.
A mayor abundamiento, yo tengo dos bugas un Saab y un BMW, los cohes Japos para los Japos.
Salud y forza en el canut
Matthew Kahn, you should be smarter than that. Of course green cars give people a chance for self-branding, but so do Hummers, Cadillacs and BMWs, and etc.
As others have long noted, it seems odd to seek out the car doing genuine good, and then distract us with secondary considerations.
As I said above, I’ve cut my electric bill to $11 and my natural gas bill to $25. My gasoline bill at $40+ per month is now my highest energy cost. By the rule of thumb that costs track BTUs which track CO2 emissions, then my Prius is actually my largest household emitter.
Now, I can share my thought process as I bought my Prius. It does leverage off the “public symbol” aspect. I asked myself: “How low can I go? A little Toyota Yaris (in ’05 it was the Echo) will be inexpensive and have a low carbon footprint. But maybe it is too cheap. I am a gentleman of a certain age. An Echo might be perceived as too low status for me. If I step up to the Prius it will still be cheap, save on gas, help the environment, and give me a plausible ‘other’ reason for the purchase.”
And so that’s what I did. As I also upgraded all my household appliances to frugal, but Energy star, models.
(I guess you could amuse me, Matthew and Dan, by sharing your energy bills.)
BTW Dan, is it up your “predictably / irrational” alley to ask why we see more criticism of Prius drivers than of say Porsche drivers with respect to the environment?
I mean, presumably, statistically, Porsche drivers would have fewer Energy Star appliances and less home insulation than the environmentally motivated.
(There was that survey showing that carbon offset buyers tended to do more in other ways, in addition to their offsets. You know, rather than using them as a ‘free pass.’)
As a Prius owner and a member of an online Prius group, I think most (but obviously not all) Prius owners do take extra steps in reducing their carbon and energy usage. I’ve replaced my furnace and my windows, use a lower-wattage LCD TV (backlight reduced for better image), a front-loading washing machine, etc. I’ll do more in the years to come. Owning an efficient vehicle is just one aspect of my life choices, which is live lightly and not send money to Al Qaeda. If I could buy a good electric vehicle I’d do that, but the Prius is as good as I can get today. Interestingly, the other even more distinctive hybrid, the Honda Insight, isn’t sold anymore because of low sales – I think it’s more to do with practicality than visibility.
To clear some misconceptions – hybrid batteries have been shown to last the life of the car – many Prius vehicles have gone over 250K miles on the original batteries. The Prius has been listed by MSN as the best overall value for a car under $24K – for three years straight.(http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=464872) Consumer Reports shows the Prius as having the highest owner satisfaction rating at 92% and the least expensive family car to own. It just makes good economic sense for a lot of people.
These are very interesting comments, particularly from the Prius owners.
One other thing I am wondering about is whether the act of owning and using a Prius act as a reminding mechanism, whereby every time a Prius owner gets into and out of their car they think about their energy expenditure and as a consequence behave better.
We know that a lot of our behaviors are driven by what is in our minds at that moment, and it is possible that i our thinking has more moments o the day that we think abut energy saving we might buy different things in the grocery store, recycle more etc.
I would love some feedback on this point
Dan
I had some converging forces working in my purchasing decisions. I got out of the dot-com with enough that if I live frugally I don’t have to worry about money … maybe ever again. I call myself semi-retired. At the same time I came to believe in global warming, and to half-believe peak oil. It seemed that cutting my costs was good for me and good in general.
It is more socially acceptable to be green than to be cheap.
The awareness factor is key. In addition to the constant reminder of prices, cars are also easy to compare side by side and figuring the consumption of a car before you buy it is a simpler task than figuring the energy cost of the heat lost just through your current windows. Manufacturers are unwilling to make claims essentially because there are too many factors. I would argue that local building codes ought to be revised so that new construction is taking reasonable steps to improve safety and energy efficiency from the start when it is most cost effective.
On carbon credits:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/963.html
I think RSaunders is correct on this one that it’s related to new purchases. It’s also strongly related to transcation information. A car purchase provides the buyer with a significant amount of information in a concise package – makes it easy to determine the improvement. Since the dozens of appliances, insulation and other aspects of our homes do not easily provide contributory information about our their marginal energy costs it’s easy to ignore/misunderstand the benefit of purchasing an improvement.
I think a few things need to happen for home upgrades to become more important for consumers. First energy prices need to reflect actual costs – i.e. make energy prices clear. Second improve appliances to the point that they tell the user, on demand, how much they are costing to run. I also think that home energy use audits that many jurisdictions have are still much less used than other home improvement professional services – raising awareness, via various means, of what these audits can provide consumers in real terms is likely needed.
If people are worried about CO2 and think that home improvement is the way to go, it’s important to keep in mind that the CO2 generated in the creation of these new appliances and materials can be significant. This highlights another issue – manufacturing costs don’t reflect CO2 creation, another lack of transactional information.
I blog in the transportation and climate change space. Some interesting questions are asked here, and clearly we need to do all things. I wanted to put some hard data between the car vs house fixes (and we need to do both and everything): In the US, 29% of CO2 emissions come from personal vehicles, manufacturing those vehicles and getting the fuel ready for consumption; 17% of emissions come from our residential electric bill. The source for this data is from the US department of energy.
A couple of the comments talked about issues that I have blogged on. Here are links to those relevant ones below:
confusing “hybrid” with “fuel efficient” vehicles:
http://networkmusings.blogspot.com/search/label/Toyota%20Echo
the myth of a car that will address climate change:
http://networkmusings.blogspot.com/2007/09/climate-change-window-of-requirement.html
I do think that reminders make a difference (this blog entry is reminding me that I meant to check on HVAC replacement, in fact), and I’m therefore wondering whether auto-deduction of power bills or year-round leveling of the expense make it less likely that a user will take active steps to conserve energy. I suspect that the more direct connection between the energy use and the pain of paying for it, the more likely that action will be taken.
This is something that I’ve long wondered about. Virtually every driver will know pretty much exactly how many miles they get to the gallon. But ask the average householder how many kilowatt hours of gas or electricity they use each week and they’ll look at you blankly. They will have literally not the faintest idea. And until people begin to develop an awareness of their home energy use, it will remain at the present riduculously high levels.
I’ll take your word for it that the four person family home in Massachussetts pumps out 53 tonnes of CO2 each year. Energy consumption in my own cosy and well-appointed four person household in Scotland was responsible for a grand total of 2.3 tonnes of CO2 (split almost exactly evenly between gas and electricity). But the only reason that I know this is because I take the time to monitor our energy usage. And since I’ve been doing so, our energy use has fallen dramatically.
There’s a lot of puff spoken about high energy costs, but I see no evidence whatsoever that society as a whole is interested in managing its energy demand down to a reasonable level. Irrational indeed. If your work can help to break this deadlock, it will have done us all a great service.
I’d be very interested in looking at the effectiveness of energy star rated applicances ect. Specifically, I’d be very interested in this:
If Joe Blogs buys an energy effecient dryer/hybrid car does he use it MORE or LESS that he would have because he know it’s consumption is lower in comparison to others.
Does anyone know a study?
People operate daily in generalities, balancing lots of requirements. The reason we need institutions and government is to “institutionalize” our thinking and behavior in a way that is collectively valuable … opposing is the odd notion that we all have to be different to be personally valuable, so that odd quirks of behavior and anti-social tendencies we have accepted as somehow powerful and individualistic. In a sense we are fitting into an economy that benefits those with capital, not building a society that helps us all. Making decisions like this leaves lots of room for profit.
Why get a prius when you can get an economical car?
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/used_car_reviews/article3552994.ece
I found a great home water conservation device that saves water and also saves me a bunch of time! I got a Hot Water Lobster Instant Hot Water valve a few months ago and it’s awesome! It’s a recirculation system that needs no electricity or pump! I don’t waste water down the drain waiting for the water to get hot anymore in the shower. It’s quite convenient to not have to stand waiting for the kitchen water to warm up too! I think it will pay off pretty quickly. I paid only $179.95 at their website. It was super easy for me to install! I think everyone should get one if you want to save water, time, and energy! One unit was enough to work for my whole house! Here’s their site… Check it out:
http://www.hotwaterlobster.com
Whole house energy saving device can save you up to 25% on your electricity,protect your home from lightning,power surges and spikes, harmful noise. This revolutionary product is now available to the public, it is connected to your electric panel and is easy to install (by and electrician)providing you with clean power paying for itself in 2 to 3 years depending on your electrical usage it could be sooner, it is UL listed and patent pending and is the best power saving device on the market hands down. It comes with a 10 year unconditional warranty.go to http://www.ecoquestintl.com/clean
Mission accomplished folks. Because of this blog I just toured my 3 level home (it’s nearly midnight) in search of stuff that was using electricity for no good reason. I was shocked– I turned off or disconnected 18 things– OMG!
Now if I can convince an 18 and a 12 year old to at least think about the value of unplugging I know this can be the beginning of our journey on a much wiser energy path. Thanks Dan (and many others) for the wake up call!
Sher
halir energy is important coz you cant do anything w/out energy no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!