Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings

After sharing much about energy consumption and production on a national and global scale, I would like to talk about what individuals can do to save and reduce energy consumption. In this blog post, I will be sharing about the journal article on public perceptions of energy consumption and savings which illustrates what needs to be improved to help consumer make wiser decisions with regards to the usage of energy. 

Research done in the article has shown that most participants focused more on curtailment such as the switching off of lights rather than using energy efficient products such as more efficient light bulbs and refrigerators. Only 11.7% of the participants mentioned that efficiency improvements are a way to conserve energy while 55.2% mentioned curtailment activities. The article explains that the public might feel that curtailment is easier to carry out and of lesser cost as compared to energy efficient products that have to be bought. This suggests that the public can do more to reduce their energy consumption. 

In addition, participants in general did not recognise energy differences across devices and activities. It has been noted that participates estimated that central air conditioner consumes 1.3 times more energy than a room air conditioner. In reality, a central air conditioner consumes 3.5 times more energy than a room air conditioner. Another example is that participants estimated that trains, ships and trucks consume roughly about the same amount of energy. However, it has been reported that trucks consume 10 times more energy per ton-mile. It is indeed a concern that participants fail to recognise these huge differences. This would mean that there are likely to opt for the less energy efficient option when there are other better alternatives available. This can pose as a hindrance to our pursuit of reducing our energy consumption and the release of greenhouse gases. Hence, the article suggests that there is a need to bridge this gap in knowledge. I agree to what the article says and the government can play an active role in promoting energy efficiency improvements more than curtailment activities. I also feel that as we often place an emphasis on greater improvements in technology to create more energy efficient appliances, we may tend to neglect that the consumers are not able to keep up with the progress. This is because that the consumers fail to see the effectiveness of the energy efficient products and hence little is done to reduce energy consumption and savings. Therefore, I think that it is important that efforts are also channeled to making sure the consumer makes wiser decisions with regards to energy consumption. 

References: 

Attari, S., DeKay, M., Davidson, C., & Bruine de Bruin, W. (2010). Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, 107(37), 16054-16059. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1001509107