Money Angles

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.

FOOTNOTE: *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.