Conservation

The first answer is simple: use less. Before asking how to make more energy, ask which uses we can cut out. We do not need a new invention to stop making unnecessary trips or heating and cooling an empty house.

Asking people to conserve is a hard political sell. "Drive less. Buy less. Keep your house warmer in summer and cooler in winter" asks voters to give up some convenience and comfort. "We will fund a great new energy program" offers a more attractive promise: keep living the same way, and technology will take care of the problem. That is the political temptation. The promise still has to work in the real world. A slogan is not an energy plan.

Conservation means using less. Efficiency means using less energy to do the same job. Driving fewer miles is conservation. Driving a car that uses less fuel per mile is efficiency. Both help, but a more efficient car can still burn more fuel if you drive it much farther.

• Drive less: plan errands and combine trips instead of making a separate trip for every task.
• Combine riders: share the ride when people are going to the same place. Count any extra driving needed to pick them up.
• Skip trips you do not need. Walk, cycle, or meet remotely when that works.
• Heat less: keep the house cooler in winter and turn down unnecessary heating when away.
• Cool less: keep the house warmer in summer. Use shade and ask whether you need the air conditioning running.
• Turn off lights and equipment you are not using. Buy fewer things you do not need, and keep useful things longer.

Keep temperatures safe for the people and the building. Avoid dangerous heat or cold, frozen pipes, and moisture damage. The point is to cut waste, not essential protection.

Here is a simple example. Ten separate 6-mile errands add up to 60 miles. Suppose you combine them into two 12-mile routes: 24 miles. That is 36 fewer miles, a 60% reduction. At an assumed 30 miles per gallon, you use 0.8 gallon instead of 2 gallons. Your routes will differ, but the point is the same: less driving, less fuel, without buying a new car.

Every energy source has consequences. Burning fossil fuels uses fuel and produces pollution. Solar panels, wind turbines, dams, and nuclear plants also need materials, construction, space, and equipment that eventually wears out. Their effects are different, but none is free of consequences. "Renewable" does not mean "no damage anywhere." As we look at each source, we must count what it takes to build it, run it, and deal with what is left afterward.

Policy should encourage conservation. Make it easier and worthwhile to use less, instead of treating every increase in use as a reason to spend money making more.

• Show people how much energy they use and how much money they save by using less.
• Make sharing rides easier. Remove rules that get in the way of practical shared trips.
• Have government offices cut unnecessary travel and stop heating and cooling empty buildings unnecessarily.
• If a program pays people to cut electricity use at busy times, check that they actually cut it. Compare with what they would otherwise have used.
• Before funding more energy production, compare its cost with the cost of using less.

Using electricity at a different hour can ease pressure on the grid. But moving the same use from afternoon to night does not, by itself, mean we used less energy. Count both separately.

New energy programs put taxpayer money into someone's hands. Ask plainly: who gets paid, why were they chosen, and what do we get for our money? A program can win political support and reward well-connected businesses without solving the problem it was supposed to solve. Do not assume that happened in every case; check the money and the results.

Show how much energy was actually saved, what it cost taxpayers and users, and whether the promised benefits happened. Money handed out and equipment installed do not answer those questions. Stop paying for programs that do not work. Apply that test to conservation programs too.

Better technology can help supply the energy we still need. It does not make unnecessary consumption harmless. If we care about resources, pollution, and climate, we must be willing to use less, and support policies that encourage it.