Americans underestimate personal power consumption and overestimate saving potential

Many Americans believe the best effort they can make towards energy conservation is to use low-power light bulbs and recycle glass bottles, according to a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The same citizens also severely underestimate the amount of energy they could save by switching to currently available alternative technologies
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Governments and environmental groups should do more to educate citizens as to the more effective contributions they can make to reduce their energy consumption, conclude the researchers.

Researchers at Columbia University recruited over 500 volunteers via web marketplace Craigslist and asked them to estimate the energy consumption of nine household devices, such as a washing machine, TV and air conditioner. They were also asked to estimate the energy savings they could make through adopting various behaviours, from using lower-wattage light bulbs and recycling glass to line-drying rather than tumble-drying clothes and driving a more fuel-efficient car.

The largest group, nearly 20 percent, cited turning off lights as the best approach to saving energy. Very few cited buying decisions that experts say would cut US energy consumption dramatically, such as more efficient cars (cited by only 2.8 percent), more efficient appliances (cited by 3.2 percent) or insulating homes (cited by 2.1 percent).
Previous studies have concluded that households could reduce energy consumption some 30 percent by making such choices without waiting for new technologies, making big economic sacrifices or dramatically reducing their standard of living.
“When people think of themselves, they may tend to think of what they can do that is cheap and easy at the moment,” said Shahzeen Attari, lead author of the report and a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
The survey shows that governments and environmental groups have failed to communicate more sophisticated messages about energy conservation and gone for easy green initiatives, such as recycling and focussing on lighting, concludes Attari.
More worryingly, it shows that US citizens view green behaviour as small curtailments of current behaviour – doing less of the same things – rather than adopting new ways of doing things.
“But switching to efficient technologies generally allows you to maintain your behaviour and save a great deal more energy,” said Attari.

On average, the respondents to the survey underestimated their own energy use and overestimated the savings they could make by a factor of 2.8.

This shows a lack of understanding about the relative consumption of familiar household devices, for example, that a 3kW drier uses 30 times more energy than a 100W light bulb.
More environmentally aware respondents, and those with a better understanding of basic maths, were more accurate in their estimates, the survey found.

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