This just doesn't make sense if we are "recovering":

http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

Excerpt: "Mark W.also forwarded these charts of Electrical power consumption. Not only has electrical consumption never recovered the levels of mid-2008, it peaked in mid-2011 and has begun a sharp decline in late 2011."

Just what they want...everyone docile, broke, immobilized and unable to raise a family or have any kiddies so they can select who gets the next crop of jobs.

Obama's incandescent bulb ban in action!

Serious though, I'm the dumbass who tracks his power usage by month. 2008 was the peak usage year for me in the last 5 and it's been trending lower since. Most of that is due to changes I've deliberately made (insulation, replacing fridges with energy star ones, and yes cfl's). My guess is absent new house creation, energy use on existing structures will trend slightly down over time so what this tells me is we have no growth in households or companies. Also remember, big manufacturing uses piles more energy than households. How many boarded up auto plants and other manufacturing facilitates do we have now verses 2008? I see plenty around here.

Wouldn't the high number of empty houses also contribute to this?

Of course IF. Negative household formation would mean lower household energy use unless all the rich folks buy hot tubs.

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It is the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. It is all part of the clean energy plan. Service jobs use less energy, especially those that create such wonderful products as MBS, CDO, and such.

This is just proof that Obama's plan is working.

I've personally done the same as Eighty6, and installed LED lighting, Insulation, and made various improvements to the HVAC system in my house. My energy usage is down by 50%.

On the business side, My company draws about 1 Megawatt of power on a relatively constant basis, 24x7x365. Over the last few years we've swapped out older less efficient equipment with newer more efficient equipment, and we have had some "growth" there as well -- with the total amount of power usage staying roughly the same.

I also drive less than I used to.

All that said, my income is about the same as it was 5 years ago, I'm not being more efficient because I "need to", but rather because I "want to".

Probably those people who have means are generally trying to use less energy because they "want to", and those who do not have means are using less energy because they "need to". It's not a great time to be selling energy!

The volt is so efficient!


/sarc

86 is spot on. It's fewer households and fuel efficiencies. Mostly fewer households created. When jr moves back into Mom's basement he doesn't use as much power.

JMTC

Anyone else here have a TED5000 device installed? Not that I'm great at cutting my usage, but I have lots of data on what I use!

I have the old one running. TeD 2000 I think. What I did was use that and a single kill-o-watt to determine what was using what percentage and address the high drain ones. I had a 15 ye old fridge in the garage that was hammering me. My kitchen fridge is not great either but its too new to replace. The other item that suprised me were the cable dvr's. They suck hard even when the TV is off. You can cut once you measure.

Blaming Obama for outsourcing manufacturing jobs is a new one. The rational explanation is what many have been saying here - since the rise in oil prices in the 2000s and the wars and nonsense, people have become more and more conscious of their energy consumption, and companies have started offering many of the products that have been around so far for much cheaper than ever and it has caught on. CFLs became popular (in usage) before the incandescent bulb ban was passed (giving an excuse for the perma-carpers of course.)

This is a GOOD thing, we are slowly and steadily heading towards a more responsible way of life, waste not want not real efficiency. Just in the last 5 years washers, dryers, water heaters, central heaters, all have become significantly more efficient. Plus a much milder winter does not hurt either - many parts of the country normally do not have snow, and hence do not have gas or oil-fueled heaters, they have electric heaters (Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc... for example) Similarly many apartment dwellers have electric heating. A much milder winter throughout the country leads to lower electricity consumption. I am sure if you looked at these stats for Europe this year will show a strong rise in usage.