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Our monthly electricity usage (below) since we moved to our Houston home in 1995 shows a couple of interesting things. We started using a few fluorescent lights at the outset but only slowly increased that to almost 100% of our lights now and we no longer leave a porch light on at night. And yet there's no indication that that's made any difference (see February, for example, where there's seldom a contribution from air conditioning). What is quite clear is that seasonal air conditioning accounts for about 55% of our household electricity needs and that, at least in this area, people who want to make a difference should be trying to ensure that their air conditioners are efficient, that ducting and insulation are in good shape, and their thermostats are set as high as they reasonably can. A few dollars spent there would be far better than spending it on CFLs, for example.
Note that our family of four consumes an average of 16.6 megawatt-hours per year - an astoundingly large figure in my mind although the average usage in the U.S. is 12.8 MW-hr/yr per capita (but the latter figure includes usage outside the home like schools, governments, businesses, etc.). Using the average accepted value of 0.63 pounds of carbon per kilowatt-hour for the emission of carbon dioxide from electricity produced in Texas (38% from coal and 45% from natural gas), our home usage for 4 people is about 10,500 pounds or over 5 tons of carbon per year. A few years ago we reduced that to 0 pounds per year simply by switching our electricity provider to one that produces it all from wind turbines only. That costs us less than $10 per month extra (3.3% more than the commonly used alternative) and is dramatically more cost-effective than buying CFLs. I'm a big supporter of CFLs and other strategies and I intend to keep looking for ways to reduce our usage anyway. I just think people should spend more than a couple of minutes thinking about what they can do that's most effective for their particular situation.
And if legislators would simply provide just a little more tax incentive for renewables (or a little higher taxation for nonrenewables), then the average consumer might make a similar switch simply for economic reasons.
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