U.S. sings the convenience electric; cutting back is a charged issue

An average American uses about six times the world average of electricity.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As a rule, Americans can't take the heat in summer. Or the cold in winter. Or inconvenience any time. The delicious shock of chilled air on a sweltering day is a tonic not to be denied, and they'll do everything in their overtaxed power grids to get it.
By world standards, the United States is an electricity glutton, using one-quarter of the power consumed everywhere and far more than any other country. As power again thrummed through cables deadened by the historic blackout, no one expected that to change fast.
The emphasis Friday was on getting past the immediate power crunch, and over the longer term, making power systems more reliable so Americans can go on getting as much as they want.
Cool enough?
Few leaders questioned whether people really need to walk from blazing heat into a room so cold it begs for a long-sleeved shirt. One who did was Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia delegate in Congress, whose vote does not count.
"When it's hot as the dickens, we should resist going whole hog with electricity," she said in steamy Washington. "And I do mean whole hog."
In the 1970s energy crisis, President Carter went on TV in a cardigan sweater and asked people to dress warmly in winter and turn down the heat.
These days, that sort of accommodation to the elements seems foreign -- as foreign, perhaps, as Iraq, where people are adapting to postwar power shortages by sleeping on rooftops, dipping into rivers, looking for shade, and now, poking fun at America's passing discomfort.
Air conditioning takes the biggest summer toll on electricity, experts say, but there are many other ways Americans, through a normal day, power up their lives. The bedside fan. The computer left on all day. Incandescent lights that heat air the AC is working hard to cool. Dryers rumbling when a clothesline would do.
Altogether, the average American uses nearly 12,900 kilowatt-hours a year. The world average: 2,200.
Having it all
Conservationists are not hectoring people to go without. Even they say people can have it all, with common sense and smart use of technology.
"We can do the right thing and still be comfortable," said Ronnie Kweller of the Alliance to Save Energy. "Conservation has the image of deprivation, sweating in the summer, being cold in the winter. Efficiency doesn't mean deprivation."
Added Kyle Datta of the Rocky Mountain Institute: "It's not a question of taking away people's amenities. It wouldn't be the right way to think about the problem."
On a hazy August day, refrigerated air can feel less like a frill than a birthright.
Carrying groceries into her Alexandria, Va., home, trailed by her three children sipping Slurpees, Donna Flowers, 36, said she keeps her air conditioning on even when she's out.
"AC is a lifesaver," she said. "On a hot day like this, it's like heaven on earth."
(The Alliance to Save Energy advises people who want to come home to a cool house to install a programmable thermostat. It can turn on cold air, say, a half-hour before the house is occupied.)
Of the 14 trillion kilowatt-hours consumed in the world in 2001, the United States used 3.6 trillion to power its huge economy, its geographically diverse needs and its comforts. America ranks ninth in the world in electricity usage per person -- some of the coldest and hottest countries use more. Iceland is No. 1.