Perez details practical steps any homeowner can take to slash electricity bills. Replacing just two incandescent bulbs per household with compact fluorescents nationwide would eliminate the equivalent of a large power plant. Modern refrigerators use one-third the energy of models from five years ago. Efficient washing machines cut consumption by more than half. Solar batch water heaters, costing under $1,500, pay for themselves within three years. Perez explains that a fully off-grid solar system can cost as little as $6,000 for an efficient home, far less than the luxury car price tag most people assume.
The conversation turns to the looming national energy crisis. Perez predicts widespread blackouts beyond California, potentially reaching New England and the Pacific Northwest. He criticizes the Bush administration's energy plan for ignoring efficiency and renewables, and notes that Home Power Magazine offers its complete issues free for download online. Art emphasizes that individual action on energy efficiency represents the most immediate path forward when government policy falls short.
Key Moments
Bell: stop arguing, climate is changing now: Bell opens with a fax from a listener noting San Francisco hit 101 degrees on May 30, the fourth-hottest day on record, and CNN headlines about shrubs growing in tundra and a Chinese dust storm reaching the U.S. West. He says the argument over whether climate is changing is over - policy must adapt now.
Echelon as Fourth Amendment problem: Bell relays Euro MP findings that the U.S./U.K. Echelon network is reading millions of ordinary emails and faxes daily and may breach European human-rights law - and asks why Americans don't get equivalent Fourth Amendment protection for electronic communications.
Climate-power 'death spiral': Perez predicts 40 to 200 hours of California blackouts affecting up to 4 million people that summer, and describes the feedback loop: rising temperatures drive AC demand, the coal- and gas-fired plants meeting that demand are the top CO2 sources, which in turn warms the climate further.
Net metering: sell power back to the utility: Perez explains net metering - now legal in 33 states - lets homeowners with solar feed surplus electricity back to the grid for credit, ending the utilities' century-long 'they make it, we rent it' monopoly. Utilities have fought it hammer and tong.
Modern PV module: 100W, 25-year warranty: Perez gives the early-2000s state of the art for photovoltaics: a roughly meter-by-half-meter module produces about 100 watts of 12-volt DC whenever the sun shines on it, warrantied for 25 years - JPL having torture-tested earlier generations.