Californians Aren't Energy Hogs:
Only Rhode Island, New York and Hawaii use less per person, agency says

Texas uses most

KATHERINE SELIGMAN / San Francisco Chronicle 11feb01

Sunday, February 11, 2001

You could probably power California's factories for a year on all the energy being used to trade hot-tub and light-bulb jokes about the state's electricity fiasco.

But contrary to the emergence of California-bashing as a national sport, the Golden State actually ranked a respectable 47th in total per capita energy consumption and 49th in per capita electricity use, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

"It's easy to say that California is a big pig, but we're not pigs," said Susanne Garfield, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission. "We do use a lot of energy. We are the sixth largest economy in the world. Yes, we use a lot, but our demand has not been zooming."

Rhode Island, New York and Hawaii were the only states that used less energy than California per person in 1997, the last year for which data were available. Alaska, Louisiana, Wyoming and Texas sucked up the most per capita.

The Lone Star state also used the most energy overall, consuming almost twice as much total natural gas, petroleum and electricity as California.

The Golden State's moderate climate and some of the nation's strictest fuel,

building and appliance efficiency standards are generally cited to explain California's comparatively lower per capita energy usage.

That being said, California -- the world's 10th biggest energy user -- is still part of the energy-gulping United States. Peak-time electricity consumption in the state, for example, has risen steadily, about 2 percent a year since 1990. Californians want their SUVs, air conditioners and two- refrigerator homes as much as -- and in some cases more than -- anyone else.

After all, they live in a country that devours more gasoline, paper, steel, aluminum, electricity and water per capita than just about anywhere else on Earth, according to figures from government and international agencies.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

The average American uses about twice as much energy as the average person in France or England and about 60 percent more than the average Japanese. Any American who has ever commanded a remote control knows the unavoidable truth about this nation: Rolling blackouts or not, we have an insatiable appetite for energy.

Americans guzzle about 65 percent more energy than they did 50 years ago. We're wired, plugged in, flat-out hooked on the energy that powers everything from our cars, factories, thermostats and computers to plate warmers and nose- hair trimmers.

"We have an addiction to consumption, but it's not a psychological addiction. It's a cultural addiction," said Richard Wilk, an anthropology professor at Indiana University who has studied global consumer culture. "As a group we all participate and keep it going. . . . We have a whole culture that's based on using more and more."

Add cheap energy to the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

"We feel we have a God-given right to cheap energy," said Howard Geller, head of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, based in Washington, D.C. Geller has watched the nation's factories and buildings become more efficient, but not enough to level or decrease energy use.

HUMANITY'S HERITAGE

The hunger for energy is nothing new.

"Over millennia, humans have found ways to expand their energy harvest, first by harnessing draft animals and later by inventing machines to tap the power of wind and water," says a recent report by the Energy Information Administration, which also charts the nation's steady growth in energy consumption in all forms.

It was the discovery of fossil fuels -- coal, oil and natural gas -- that created the most widespread social and economic changes. The transformation was fast and dramatic. Until the end of the 19th century, America still relied primarily on wood energy.

Then, in 100 years, Americans went from rural dwellers who did agricultural work to city slickers who consumed most of the world's fossil fuels. Electricity, hard to come by in 1880, was everywhere a century later.

Just 75 years ago, utility companies thought they needed a mascot called Reddy Kilowatt to tout electricity as the "servant of mankind."

It turns out the little icon had a ridiculously easy job. America was an energy-rich nation and its citizens lapped up the chance to buy every new convenience.

DREAMS AND SOCIAL CLIMBING

America began as a land of dreams, where rugged individuals would have the freedom to imagine a future without limitations, Wilk said. Harnessing technology allowed Americans to dream big -- big houses, big cars, big freeways.

"The idealized American home is the mini-mansion," said Peter Schwartz, an East Bay futurist and business strategist who co-founded the Global Business Network. "As you move upscale you get a bigger house. And in a big house you have two refrigerators, one in the kitchen and one in the playroom for the soft drinks. You wouldn't find that in the European flat."

Status-seeking drives consumerism at least as much as the need for comfort, said Willett Kempton, an anthropology professor at the University of Delaware who has studied why some people consume more energy than others. People look at what their neighbors have and they want it.

Schwartz sees the country's two biggest energy decisions as the Federal Housing Administration's home-loan program in the 1940s and 1950s that allowed huge numbers of Americans to afford suburban homes and the Interstate Highway Act in the 1950s that created the freeway culture.

Once those choices were made, the nation was set on a course of consumption that's hard to change, he said. While it might be possible to tighten standards for manufacturers and builders, individuals are already living in energy-eating suburban homes and commuting long distances.

Industry and commercial transportation amounted to about two-thirds of all energy consumption in the United States in 1997, with residential and commercial uses constituting the rest.

PR PUSH TO CONSUME

"When others were building smaller, we were building bigger," said Daniel Kammen, a UC Berkeley professor and head of the school's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. "We've pushed large consumption. . . . The United States has had the lowest energy prices historically and those low prices aren't by accident. The oil, gas and car companies have worked very hard to convince people that consuming more is better."

The message, he said, was "the better electrified your house is, the better your lifestyle is. The United States utility industry helped develop the market for their product, which is using more power. Lots of other industries do it."

As of 1997, 99 percent of American homes had color televisions, 83 percent had microwaves, 47 percent had central air conditioning and 15 percent had two or more refrigerators.

And along with the growing energy habit went a tremendous amount of what authors of the 1999 book "Natural Capitalism" describe as the "flow of material and energy" required to maintain them. Consider this description from the book:

"Industry moves, mines, extracts, shovels, burns, wastes, pumps and disposes of 4 million pounds of material in order to provide one average middle-class American family's needs for a year. In 1990, the average American's economic and personal activities mobilized a flow of roughly 123 dry-weight pounds of material a day -- equivalent to a quarter of a billion semi-trailer loads a day."

The sobering statistics are enough to make anyone want to dim the lights. Or feel enormously guilty.

"Carbon guilt," said Wilk. "It's so easy to fall into moralizing about who's good and who's bad and who's guilty. We're supposed to feel guilty about using so much and depriving others on the planet. The blame game is part of consumer culture."

Food is an example. As Wilk has done in his research, people who are obsessed with dieting are also obsessed with food. The same goes for cultures that are energy gluttons.

ERRATIC EFFORTS TO CONSERVE

Californians, in general, have a better track record at energy dieting -- conservation -- than most other states. But critics say efforts have been too erratic here and nationwide.

"On occasions when Americans have an opportunity to think about it, we did pretty well, for example in the oil crisis," said Kammen. "But there's no continuing attention to the issue."

People drove less during the oil crisis of the 1970s, but resumed burning up the highway when it eased. Fuel efficiency rates, which increased steadily from the '70s, were at an all-time high of 20 miles per gallon in 1994, but then began to decline again as Americans fell in love, once again, with bigger cars.

So why can't we learn to make do with less? "That's the $64,000 question," said Wilk. Kempton said that in his consumer research, he never really got a handle on why one person showered until there was no hot water left while another jumped in and out in two minutes.

Kammen said government policy hasn't helped matters. The federal government's budget for research and development of energy technology declined by 74 percent between 1980 and 1996, according to research by Kammen and his colleagues.

"In Europe and in most other countries I know of, people are much more ready to recognize that the community has interests beyond those of the individual," said Wilk.

In California, it takes threats of shutdowns and commercial fines for people to consider using less. And still, say researchers, there is more talk about the price of energy than about its finite supply.

Consumers still want what money can buy and electricity can power. On a recent morning, there was a wait to try out the electric massage chair at the Sharper Image store in San Francisco. A salesman said the energy crisis hasn't affected sales.

"You could make the argument that this is all waste," said David Galvina, a Canadian musician who performs with his quartet aboard cruise ships, as he pondered the surrounding appliances, which include the Turbo Groomer nose-and- ear-hair clipper, the Electronic Driving Range, the Electric Pepper Mill and electronic "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" game.

"Actually," he joked, relaxing into the $1,500 chair, "everything else can go. Keep the chair."

E-mail Katherine Seligman at kseligman@sfchronicle.com.

CHART 1: International Electricity Consumption Comparison in 1998 Electric consumption

Population (millions)        (KWh/per cap)

Norway        4.42       25,304 
Canada       30.30       16,349 
Sweden        8.85       15,492 
U.S.        269.09       13,388 
Japan       126.49        8,008 
France       58.85        7,175 
UK           59.24        5,800 
Saudi Arabia 20.74        5,153 
Russia      146.91        4,873 
S. Africa    41.40        4,509 
Brazil       165.87       1,851 
Mexico       95.68        1,644 
Turkey       64.75        1,439 
Egypt        61.67          901 
China     1,238.60          872 
India       979.67          416 
Sudan       28.35            48

Source: International Energy Agency
Source: Combined State Energy Data Systems 1997

CHART 2: Best and Worst States: Total energy consumption per capita, 1997:

BEST 10 CONSUMERS
State           Million Btu 

Hawaii          201.0 
New York        225.3 
Rhode Island    237.9 
California      240.0 
Connecticut     243.3 
Florida         246.6 
Massachusetts   250.6 
Arizona         252.9 
New Hampshire   259.0 
Maryland        266.8 


WORST 10 CONSUMERS
State           Million Btu

Alaska        1,143.5
Louisiana       940.0
Wyoming         892.2
Texas           587.8
North Dakota    554.9 
Kentucky        462.6 
Indiana         457.5 
Alabama         457.3 
West Virginia   445.6 
Maine           445.3

Source: Combined State Energy Data Systems, 1997

source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/11/MN182761.DTL&type=printable 15may04