ng a product or service’s “daily energy calories.” Along with physical labels, imagine a smartphone app — we’ll call it “Decal” for short — that would scan a product’s bar code and report how much energy it took to produce that item.
Like the nutritional data on the backs of food products, Decal would give consumers a user-friendly, universal measure that they could use to compare products or count their daily energy intake. For example, the app would enable an energy dieter to scan two otherwise identical loaves of bread and see which one required less energy to produce.
Decal would have applications beyond the grocery-store shelf. By synchronizing with onboard computers in cars, buses and trains, it could tell you how much energy you use during daily errands and commutes. It would sync to a smart energy meter in your home to evaluate how much power you’re using and which appliances are the biggest guzzlers.
And at the end of the day, the app would generate your total energy diet: a Decal “score” that would quantify how many total energy calories you’ve consumed.
Once Decal took hold, the Department of Energy could recommend daily energy allowances, in the same way the Department of Agriculture recommends daily intakes of different nutrients. Experts could offer “diet” plans for energy-efficient lifestyles, and the Internal Revenue Service could offer tax rebates to families that achieve certain energy-calorie reductions.
True, not all Americans would adjust their energy intake. But many would, and we could expect producers to take up the program rapidly in response. After all, researchers have found that after food manufacturers were required in 2007 to state on their labels the amount of trans fat and saturated fat in their products, 95 percent of supermarket foods were reformulated with healthier fats. The effect would go beyond foods, too: by creating demand out of public awareness, Decal could help propel investment in energy-efficient innovations and industries.
Millions of Americans say they want the country to become more energy-efficient, but they’re wary of government-enforced rationing. Decal would avoid such overreach by giving consumers the information to change things themselves.
What America needs isn’t more cheap oil to feed a gluttonous economy, but rather better ways to use less. Any other path is the equivalent of ignoring our high cholesterol numbers and attributing our corpulence to a broken bathroom scale.