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INDUSTRY. Today's factories consume 39.5% of all energy supplies. Shearon Harris, president of Carolina Power & Light Co., revealed at Nassau that his company is helping to teach customers who consume more than $500,000 worth of electric energy a year how to reduce their usage by up to 10% through changes in design and operating processes. Recycling can also produce big savings. In the nonferrous-metals industry, for example, recycling uses only 20% as much energy as is required to refine the metal originally. Freeman stressed the point: "Our solid wastes by and large contain a better-grade ore than our mines."
HOUSING. Together with commerce, housing consumes 35% of energy production. A major saving can be made with proper insulation, because in the average home about 25% of the heat escapes through the roof. Turning down the thermostat can also make a big difference. A difference of only two degrees year-round in American homes, says University of Tennessee Physicist John R. Gibbons, could be the equivalent of saving 100 million tons of coal per year. Perpetually burning pilot lights on gas stoves are another wasteful luxury that can be eliminated. Moreover, home electric bills could be cut if consumers would buy the most efficient appliances. Electric heating is notoriously wasteful. The least efficient air conditioner now on the market, for example, uses 2.6 times as much electricity as the most efficient one, while accomplishing the same amount of cooling. How is the consumer to know which appliance is efficient? Conservationists want legislation that will force appliance makers to label the efficiency of their products. For his part, President Nixon has asked manufacturers to provide this information voluntarily; their response remains to be seen.
OFFICES AND BUSINESSES. New York Architect Richard Stein reckons that there are plenty of ways to cut energy costs in office buildings, starting with lighting standards. These are set to meet unnecessarily high requirements, he says, and waste electricity. Stein also would avoid designing buildings with sealed, all-glass facades (he advocates windows that open). Such little design changes, he estimates, could reduce air-conditioning needs by 20%. Others suggest staggered work shifts, some at night or even on weekends, to ease peak daytime loads on power plants.
All this will require legislation, some of it politically unpopular; most Americans will resent being pushed into mass transit or having to pay more for housing because of revised building codes. Still, several states are preparing legislation to break what Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent calls "the endless cycle of energy addiction."
Far-out and Far-off Solutions