David Martinez fought back when energy prices soared two years ago.
He put extra insulation in his attic for $750. He installed an $1,800 "tankless" heater that warms water as you draw it. He put in a super-efficient furnace and air conditioner, insulated his basement and lined his attic with foil that repels summertime heat.
In all, he spent about $15,000 cold- and heat-proofing the tidy, two-story house in Odenton he shares with wife Iris and daughter Isabella. His home energy use has fallen by about a third, and he has the Baltimore Gas & Electric bills to prove it.
"I actually pay less for utilities now than I did before the BGE hike," which sent electricity prices up 70 percent in 2006, says Martinez, a Web developer. "I was hoping that by proving this could be done, it would be a way of saying, 'This isn't as expensive as you think.' "
It's not. But now that energy prices are falling, the incentive for others to follow Martinez's example is shrinking, too. The country is in danger of reacting the same way it did after the 1970s energy bubble burst, by skimping on insulation and reinvesting in gas guzzlers.
We can't let that happen. Washington's next fiscal stimulus, which sounds like it's getting bigger every day, needs to include major dollars and tax incentives for energy upgrades. And Americans must keep investing in clean and efficient energy after the economic crisis is over.
"Finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy," President-elect Barack Obama told Time magazine in late October. "That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office, assuming obviously that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation."
Promoting clean energy isn't just about growth or reducing dependency on foreign sources. It's about preventing environmental degradation. Skeptics of climate change "are beginning to sound like the people who for so many years, in the face of compelling evidence, denied that cigarette smoking had serious adverse effects on health," conservative federal appeals Judge Richard Posner wrote on his blog last year.
If the $2 gas flashback enables our continued oil and gas addiction, our grandchildren will suffer.
There is a question, of course, of how cheap energy will become and how long it will last. Even at $57 a barrel, oil is 40 percent more expensive than it was four years ago.
