Efficiency Facts
  • Buying a new Energy Star air conditioner will use 20% less energy than a regular air conditioner.
  • For every degree households lower their thermostats in winter, there is a savings of about 3 percent on heating bills.
  • If every household in the U.S. switched to Energy Star light fixtures, we could save 70 billion kilowatt-hours and prevent 100 billion pounds of CO2 per year – equivalent to removing 10 million cars from the road.
  • Refrigerators in the U.S. alone use the equivalent of the output of more than 20 large nuclear power plants. If all the nation’s households used the most efficient refrigerators, electricity savings would eliminate the need for about 10 large power plants.
  • By fully utilizing the “off the shelf” energy-efficient technologies available today, we could cut the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting our homes and workplaces by up to 80.
  • In the U.S. replacing one incandescent lightbulb with an energy saving compact fluorescent bulb results in 1,000 pounds less carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere and saves $50 dollars on energy costs over the bulb’s lifetime.
  • A decrease of only 1% in industrial energy use would save the equivalent of about 55 million barrels of oil per year, worth about $1 billion.
  • Research shows that an average household with an electric water heater spends about 25% of its home energy costs on heating water.
  • In the U.S., for every kilowatt-hour of electricity you save, you also avoid pumping over two pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This helps the environment because carbon dioxide is the number one contributor to global warming.
  • Natural gas can be used for cogeneration, a process by which electricity and useful heat are produced from a single source, therefore cutting down waste.

For more information about Energy Efficiency go to —

www.sce.com

www.ase.org/section/_audience/consumers/

www.energycoalition.org/smart_energy_use/index.htm

www.socalgas.com/kidsplayhouse/index.html

http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/index.html

www.srpnet.com/community/education

www.rmi.org