Stores’ Open Doors Dump Cold Air at $140/Barrel
Jun 22nd, 2008 by Jervey
Great piece by Ashwin Seshagiri in Triple Pundit about the waste of air conditioned stores leaving their doors open.
As we mark the official start of summer this weekend, like in years past, many storefronts from Rodeo Drive to Fifth Avenue to London’s West End will open up their doors, offering cool, air-conditioned oases from the sweltering heat of the streets. Yet, what serves as a clever marketing ploy for the businesses—often successfully luring in helpless passersby first for the cool and then keeping them there for their wares—is also, as you might imagine, a huge waste of energy.
Early last year, New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer introduced a bill to the council that would set penalties for these types of energy wasting practices. Brewer, who is a long time veteran of state and local politics in New York, is well known for her public action initiatives, from previously sponsoring congestion pricing bills to working on affordable housing committees to supporting e-waste recycling programs.
“Every single summer, when it’s warm, we get calls from residents on the West Side asking why doors are open when air conditioners are working,” Brewer told the New York Sun in February, 2007. “It is an environmental issue.”
[Read the rest here.]
The Times touched on this as well last week, with the piercing headline: When Shops Keep Doors Agape, Think of Cold Air at $140 a Barrel:
“It’s about as wasteful an energy practice as one can imagine,” said Mr. Goldstein, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s like leaving the gasoline station pumps gushing fuel whether the vehicles are filling up or not.”
I first wrote about this gratuitous waste two years ago, when all energy costs were lower. The price of oil, for example, was about $70 a barrel then; we’re now not far from $140 a barrel. As New Yorkers saw once again last week, they have to hold their collective breath about Consolidated Edison’s reliability whenever temperatures soar. Anything can push the system over the edge, including all those open store doors.
And yet the waste goes on as if oil were cheap and inexhaustible.