Why can't we just use less electricity, instead of developing new energy sources such as offshore wind?

Much of our world relies on steady electricity to function — including hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes. Power outages can cause irreparable and life-threatening (1) harm to people and communities (2). Additionally, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels by moving towards electrification of everything (think home heating, cars, buses, appliances, etc.) would roughly double (3) electricity demand. Not only do we need to replace existing dirty energy with renewables, but we need even more renewably-generated electricity to offset fossil fuels in newly electrified sectors. Therefore, it is highly unrealistic that we will stop needing electricity entirely. 

However, there is a lot we can do to reduce our electricity consumption; for example, we can utilize more efficient products, use electricity at times of the day when it is more plentiful, and design our communities to require less energy (such as building good public transit and pedestrian infrastructure so that people have less of a need to drive—even electric cars!). In addition, many new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, require staggering amounts of electricity (4) and should be regulated to reduce their demand.

Thanks to activism by local environmental organizations dating back to 2012, Humboldt County is currently developing a Climate Action Plan (5) that will encourage many of these actions. California has implemented a variety of energy efficiency policies and programs (6), such as the Building Energy Efficiency Standards (7), the Energy Savings Assistance Program (8), and the Energy Upgrade California program (9). At the federal level, Democratic administrations have long advocated (10) for stricter rules around energy efficiency. To take just one recent example, on April 30, 2024, the Biden administration finalized new energy efficiency standards (11) for household water heaters that will save homeowners money and reduce their energy use. Because of efficiency standards like these, per capita energy use in the U.S. has actually fallen (12) from its peak in the 1970s.

Energy use per person in the United States, 1965-2022.

Source: Our World in Data (12)

Click here (13) to read more about how offshore wind could reduce the cost of infrastructure needed to reach the Western Interconnection's zero-emissions by 2050 goal. 

References

1. Wong, A. (2023, January 19). California’s power outages are a life-and-death issue. High Country News. www.hcn.org/issues/55-3/ideas-social-justice-californias-power-outages-are-a-life-and-death-issue/

2. Goodell, J. (2024, June 3). The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/opinion/heat-technology-climate.html 

3. Popovich, N. and Plumer, B. (2023, April 14). How electrification became a major tool for fighting climate change. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/14/climate/electric-car-heater-everything.html 

4. Geman, B. (2024, February 26). There's a power struggle brewing over crypto and AI — literally. Axios. www.axios.com/2024/02/26/ai-crypto-power-carbon-emissions 

5. Humboldt Planning & Building. (2024, May 15). Climate Action Plan. County of Humboldt. https://humboldtgov.org/2464/Climate-Action-Plan

6. Berkeley Law Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. (2019, December). California Climate Policy Fact Sheet: Building Energy Efficiency. University of California, Berkeley School of Law. www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Fact-Sheet-Building-Energy-Efficiency.pdf 

7. California Energy Commission. (2024). Building Energy Efficiency Standards. https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards

8. California Public Utilities Commission. (2024). Energy Savings Assistance. www.cpuc.ca.gov/consumer-support/financial-assistance-savings-and-discounts/energy-savings-assistance

9. Energy Upgrade California. (2024). https://energyupgradeca.org/ 

10. Antunes, J. J. M., Neves, J. C., Elmor, L. R. C., et al. (2023, January). A new perspective on the U.S. energy efficiency: The political context. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 186(A). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122093

11. U.S. Department of Energy. (2024, April 30). DOE Finalizes Efficiency Standards for Water Heaters to Save Americans Over $7 Billion on Household Utility Bills Annually. www.energy.gov/articles/doe-finalizes-efficiency-standards-water-heaters-save-americans-over-7-billion-household

12. U.S. Energy Information Administration (2023); Energy Institute - Statistical Review of World Energy (2023); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Primary energy consumption per capita” [dataset]. U.S. Energy Information Administration, “International Energy Data”; Energy Institute, “Statistical Review of World Energy”; Various sources, “Population” [original data]. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use

13. Gonzalez, N., Serna-Torre, P., Sánchez-Pérez, P. A., Davidson, R., Murray, B., Staadecker, M., Szinai, J., Wei, R., Kammen, D. M., Sunter, D. A., & Hidalgo-Gonzalez, P. (2024, August 9). Offshore wind and wave energy can reduce total installed capacity required in zero-emissions grids. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50040-6