Coping without cheap power, in real time
Posted
Apr 30 2008, 12:15 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
If your electric bill were going to rise by 447%, what would you do? Probably what they're doing up in Juneau, Alaska, which just lost its source of cheap hydroelectric power.
Residents bought out the town's stock of compact fluorescents and clothespins. They're cooking on backyard grills and eating by candlelight. Stores shut off neon signs and unplugged vending machines. Families are limiting television and computer use. Not only are people falling all over themselves to conserve electricity, at least one man tripped over his dog in a dimly lit room. Luckily neither he nor the pooch were seriously injured.
Alaska's capital city went dark when mid-April avalanches took down the transmission lines from a hydroelectric dam. Repairs will take up to three months. For now the region's electric utility is providing backup power with diesel generators, which isn't cheap given that oil prices are above $113.60 a barrel as I write this. Instead of paying 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, Juneau residents will temporarily pay more than 50 cents. The national average is 10.3 cents.
Join me in a moment of irony: A state that made its fortune in oil production is finding diesel a tad pricey.
When cost becomes an issue
Apparently frugality is a hot new trend. We know from experience about the staying power of most hot new trends. Anyone else remember oat bran? They were putting it in pretzels, for heaven's sake.
But what's happening in Juneau might be a harbinger for the rest of the country. If food, housing and energy prices continue to jump, sensible people will do the sensible thing: cut back.
Until recently, Smart Spending message board reader "Lambchop1" didn't think much about prices. "Now I am noticing costs," says the reader, who is buying only sale items and house brands at the supermarket, driving less and no longer using the landline for long-distance calls.
These and other changes were detailed in a message board thread called "What have you cut out?" Readers are combining errands, sewing clothes, eating only at home, timing their showers, coloring their own hair, growing vegetables, dumping cable, delaying vacations, and hitting the library.
"Patrioticstablest," who's 62, says she and her husband make enough money not to have to cut back. "But I have anyway," she writes. "Why throw money away, and the way it is now who knows what else can happen?"
Why, indeed, throw money away? Because old habits die hard, that's why. I predict that voluntary simplicity will quickly lose its luster for many Americans. After the initial trend-buzz wears off, they'll go back to expensive habits like eating most meals out, constantly upgrading electronics, leasing a different car each year, and shopping when they're bored.
The luckier ones will stick with it. They're lucky because they will have discovered the benefits of voluntary simplicity: less stuff, no debts, peace of mind.
However, it's important to remember the people for whom frugality is not a choice. Cutting back is not a chic-lifestyle statement; it's a survival tool. And some of these folks don't have many places left to cut.
Turn it down and keep it down
Whether the Juneau changes will last is anyone's guess. Maybe once cheap power is available once more, residents will go back to neon signs and marathon online gaming.
Then again, maybe they won't. An energy expert who visited Juneau recently notes that severe drought threatened hydroelectric power in Brazil in 2001. That country's residents cut consumption of electricity by 20%, and never returned to the previous level of usage.
Here's hoping that the Juneau crowd realizes that life can be quite happy without the TV as background noise and that wooden racks can be as effective as electric dryers. Maybe their example will remind us that it is possible to use energy wisely. That is, as long as you're careful not to trip over the dog.
