TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012990/0129205.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.9 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 62

MONEY ANGLES

Throw a Few More Kernels on the Fire


By Andrew Tobias


    The bad news (just to get it out of the way) is that the
energy crisis seems to be resurgent. One sign: energy-related
stock prices have been rising in greedy anticipation. Shares in
Offshore Logistics, which leases helicopters to offshore
drillers, rose from $2 a share to $12 last year. A less oblique
sign is that the U.S. is back to importing fully 46% of its oil,
or 7.9 million bbl. a day, the largest percentage in ten years.
Domestic production of crude oil recorded its biggest decline
ever last year, falling to a 26-year low.

    The good news is that there are things you can do about it.
I don't know how much time you spend glued to the Weather
Channel, but here's what I learned watching it one night: it
makes sense to run ceiling fans in the winter! Just turn the
blades so they push the air down. Instead of cold feet and warm
ceilings, a gently rotating fan will even things out so you
don't have to turn the heat up so high. (In summer switch the
direction of the blades and increase the speed. The wind chill
will make it feel like 72 degrees, even though the thermostat's
set at 78 degrees.) A ceiling fan, says the weather lady, takes
no more energy than a 100-watt light bulb.

    If you have no ceiling fan, then how about a Dove-Tech
corn-burning stove? It's too early to tell for certain how well
this really works -- only 4,000 have been sold so far -- but it
sure seems to solve a lot of problems: the energy crisis (we're
the Saudi Arabia of corn), the pollution crisis (the kernels
burn far cleaner than wood, coal or oil), the farm crisis
(Dove-Tech will even burn moldy surplus), the trade deficit
(American corn, not imported oil), the deforestation crisis
(chop corn, not trees), the safety crisis (corn isn't
dangerous, and you can put this stove flush against a wall --
or even sit on it -- because the housing doesn't get hot) and
the chimney crisis (Dove-Tech doesn't need one; you can vent it
the same as you would a dryer, or hook it in to your existing
ductwork).

    True, the current models may be a little ugly, and they're
not cheap -- about $1,800 -- but the long-term savings over oil
or electric heat can be dramatic. And what you don't burn, you
can pop (just kidding). Dan and Barbara Burbank, who are using
one to heat their eleven-room New Hampshire home, say it costs
about $5 a day, and they're thrilled. Last winter they burned
seven cords of wood, at $130 a cord, and over a thousand gallons
of oil. So far this year, just $400 worth of corn. (For more
information: Dove Energy Systems, Box 399, Fletcher, N.C.
28732.)

    But c'mon. Corn stoves? Just to be sure this is a good idea,
I called Amory Lovins, who quit Harvard after his sophomore year
("I was paying Harvard, so I felt Harvard should let me study
what I wanted") and has since written twelve books, garnered
five honorary degrees and become a world leader in energy
conservation and research. Not that I was going to let any of
that damp my enthusiasm for corn stoves.

    It turns out that burning corn is O.K., but that growing it,
at least the way it's grown now, is not. Lovins says the erosion
modern farming causes eats two bushels of topsoil for every
bushel of corn produced. Agricultural strip mining. So in his
view, corn stoves may make the best sense only in regions where
there's lots of corn (especially if it's rotting in silos) but
few trees.

    Lovins' approach to the energy and pollution crises is
"negawatts." Don't curtail your comfort, just obtain it more
efficiently. You can "produce" fuel simply by arranging to need
less of it. His own toasty, superinsulated 4,000-sq.-ft.
Colorado home and office complex is heated entirely by the sun's
rays, even when it's ten below, by the warmth of the lights and
appliances, and by the body heat of the human occupants and one
"50-watt beastoid" -- his dog (which can be revved up to the
equivalent of 100 watts when excited). His specially made,
thick-walled 16-cu.-ft. refrigerator runs on less than 10% of
the electricity required by conventional models. Its
Freon-charged heat pipe employs the cold outside to cool the
unit in winter. If everyone used such refrigerators, he
calculates, the U.S. could do without $50 billion worth of power
plants, along with all the fuel they consume and pollution they
spew forth. And that's just on refrigerators! (For a $2
Visitors' Guide to the house: Rocky Mountain Institute,
Snowmass, Colo. 81654.) All told, Lovins calculates that if the
U.S. were as efficient as its competitors in Europe and Japan,
it would save $200 billion a year. Some of that savings could be
yours.

    In fact, with the stock market on Dristan (even Offshore
Logistics has fallen back a bit), your best investment these
days may be attic insulation, window caulking, door sweeps on
the bottoms of your doors (to cut drafts), low-energy bulbs,
more efficient appliances, faucet aerators and more frugal
shower heads (to cut hot-water consumption) -- a corn stove, of
course -- and a snug-fitting pet door for your own beastoid. If
you invest $2,500 in such things and lower your utility bills
$50 a month as a result, you earn a $600 (or 24%) annual
tax-free return on your money.* Not too shabby. Of course, if
you move, you stop "earning" that 24%. But the planet doesn't.
And, though it may be hard to quantify, a house that can be
shown to have low heating and electric costs is likely to sell
at a premium over one that does not.



* For pamphlets on The Most Energy-Efficient Appliances and on
Saving Energy and Money with Home Appliances, send $3 each to
the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Suite 535,
1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.