The dollars and nonsense of energy conservation -- By David Kreutzer, The Washington Times

 (Illustration by Greg Groesch, The Washington Times)

Have you ever gone to the kitchen in the middle of the night without turning on the lights, looked at your microwave's digital clock and said, "Man, that is bright. How much energy does that thing use anyway?"
If so, you were either hung over or an employee of the Department of Energy.

In reality, that clock uses hardly any energy at all — an average of 4.5 watts on the over-the-range models and less for the countertop ones. That minuscule consumption, though, is more than enough to spur an army of regulators — seemingly unimpeded by budgets or common sense — into action.

In June, the Energy Department issued a regulation titled "Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Standby Mode and Off Mode for Microwave Ovens." Yet another in a long list of rules to save you from your appliances, this one will help you out of that dime-a-week financial hole your clock is digging every hour of every day. At least, every hour when you aren't using the microwave, because this rule looks only at the microwave's energy consumption when you don't use it.

Let's examine those savings. The big money is in the over-the-range category, where the new 2.2-watt standard will deliver life-cycle cost savings of $12 ($19 savings in electricity minus $7 for the increased cost of manufacturing the oven). Your guardian angels at the Energy Department determined that the average life span of a microwave oven is about 10 years, so you can now contemplate pocketing an additional $1.20 per year to spend on whatever you want — so long as it isn't something like a vacuum fluorescent display for your microwave.

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