Things that go bump in the night may be wasting energy

By Mary Bandziukas

Try this. When it gets dark tonight, turn off the lights in your home for about an hour, and

The darkness will help you focus on all the hums, whooshes and other sounds of the electrical equipment in use in your home. And you will see the little green or red diodes of other appliances that are "asleep." Did you realize that so many things were turned on?

According to Con Edison's 2006 Annual Report, electricity use among its customers grew three times as fast as the population grew between 1995 and 2005.

Additional energy is being brought to the city, but one cost is two years of disruption through the heart of Riverdale. Buses, businesses, residents, schoolchildren and shoppers are girding for continuous detours, dust and noise as the utility company buries a new transmission line beneath Riverdale Avenue and Broadway.

One million additional residents are expected to make New York City their home in the next two decades. Our power needs will continue to soar.

Three years ago, our community saved the salt marshes and open space of the Spuyten Duyvil Triangle from burial under a massive, 11-story power converter, proposed by an independent energy supplier. Will that fight, or a similar one, emerge again?

New York City has committed to reduce the city's global warming emissions by more than 30 percent by 2030. And one-half of those reductions are to come from increased efficiency in the way we use energy within buildings. Moreover, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has noted that "electricity is the single largest source of global warming gas emissions in the United States."

Kicking your energy habit will be good for the city, good for the world, and it will help ease growing pains in our own backyard.

Mary Bandziukas, a Queens resident, has worked for more than 15 years as an urban planner and environmental program manager. She has been a consultant with the Riverdale Nature Preservancy for the past decade.

Sustainable Riverdale appears in the third issue of the month. It is the work of the Riverdale Nature Preservancy, done in conjunction with The Riverdale Press and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Have an issue you'd like to see addressed? E-mail newsroom@ riverdalepress.com, and put Sustainable Riverdale in the subject line, or write to The Riverdale Press, 6155 Broadway, Bronx, NY 10471.

This is part of the June 19, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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