New Study: Cold Beers Warming Planet
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12. 2.07
One in three Canadian households have an old fridge full of beer cranking away in the basement or back porch. They tend to be older vintage power hogs; University of Alberta researcher Denise Young calculates that savings would total 1,165.7 million kWh annually if Canadians threw out their beer fridges.
"A reduction in the use of 'beer fridges' or a movement towards the use of newer and smaller energy-efficient models in Canada would lead to lower levels of energy use in the residential sector and, in some regions, lower emissions of greenhouse gases," says Denise.
Alternatively they can ship them to Quebec; it gets all of its electricity from hydro power so there are no greenhouse gases generated keeping their beer cold. So we should all be like Franke James and dump our fridges, and use the tried and true Canadian method shown beneath the fold. ::CBC
You should probably redact that last part about shipping fridges to Quebec. The use of excessive amounts of power in a clean-power province is something that I think is being overlooked.
BC Hydro, British Columbia's crown-owned energy utility has had a "fridge buy back" program on for a few years now where they give you $30 for your old fridge. Though, like Quebec, BC's power comes from primarily hydro, the current hydroelectric capacity of both provinces is insufficient to supply all of the power needs, and additional power is being imported. Both provinces are looking towards self-sufficiency, and at current demand this means the creation of new power plants in each province. The consequences of leaving inefficient appliances like old refrigerators is actually greater than you may think, especially if you think about the price over a long term.
An old fridge might run you an extra $100/year at the cheapest power rates in North America, but it could also mean the power utility has to import power from a secondary producer of more expensive power – raising the price of your base rate for electricity. The creation of new in-province power plants has a big effect on taxes, and may cause significant environmental damage.
Now that I think of it, I'd like to see TreeHugger do a story on power companies trading and importing energy, and its effect on the end user's prices.