Pretend for a moment that you’re walking down the street,
minding your own business, when a stranger approaches and offers
you $1,000 cash. The money is yours for the taking — no
questions asked, no illicit activities involved — but you have
to spend it on energy savings. What would you do with it? That’s
the question that polling firm Penn Schoen Berland posed to
consumers, and the results were interesting, to say the least.
Given the circumstances, you might imagine that a substantial
portion of respondents would choose to spend the money on
savings to benefit their homes. And in fact, 25% did, saying
that they’d use the $1,000 to replace old appliances with
energy-efficient models or that they’d purchase solar panels to
cut down on electric consumption. However, another 25% said that
they’d take the $1,000 and purchase a hybrid vehicle, which
implies that at least a quarter of Americans see gas consumption
as their biggest energy expense. (Never mind that the difference
between hybrid and standard models i