PAUL IRISH/TORONTO STAR

Repairman Steve Brannan says manufacturers want their products to have shorter shelf lives so consumers have to spend money to replace them.

Saving energy is expensive

I recently bought appliances. The fridge and washing machine sported the blue and white Energy Star label. They promised to substantially cut our household electricity consumption.

I told the salesperson the shiny new models were to replace still-functioning but somewhat battered energy hogs I bought back in 1986.

He laughed. "There's no chance these will last that long," he said. "You'll get 10 or 12 years out of them, if you're lucky."

This is the double-edged sword of energy efficiency.

On one side, appliances and electronic gear are much more efficient than previous versions. Better designs and motors, computer-chip controls and a host of other improvements mean they run on a fraction of the electricity gobbled by those of even just a decade ago.

On the other, we're likely to buy more of them, either because they have a limited life expectancy, or because manufacturers continually flood the market with more powerful products we find irresistible.

So, while we enjoy immediate energy savings as we use each product, in the long run our consumption might be as high as ever because of the energy required to build and operate devices that didn't exist previously, or to construct and discard things we replace more often.

Little can be done to stop the invention of gadgets – cellphones, game players, massive TVs, music systems – that gobble up electricity and seem to be out of date as soon as they're out of the box.

We wouldn't want to keep many of these gadgets for decades, experts say: They change and improve too fast. But every time they get more powerful or faster, or acquire additional features, they consume more electricity, says Natural Resources Canada.

So, while Energy Star does indicate more efficient electronic products, it often simply designates which versions are less of an additional drain on our electricity supply.

Appliances are a different issue, says Steve Brannan, who has been repairing them for 30 years. Despite gaining convenience and cosmetic features, they do little more now than decades ago. So why replace them?

The answer infuriates him: Manufacturers, he says, "have planned obsolescence down to an art."

"Thirty or 40 years ago, you'd expect to have two or three of each appliance in a lifetime. Now, it's six to 10," he says. "Energy Star is a load of crap. They save electricity. But are we saving energy? I doubt it. I think it's all a sham."

New ones, he says, could be made much more efficient without sacrificing longevity, with only a modest increase in price. "You can engineer anything to last longer ... but there's no incentive to the manufacturer to do that. They're greedy and people have been dumbed down."

Manufacturers used to compete by offering longer warranties, he says. Now it's on price, gimmicks and, in some cases, being green.

This isn't particularly the fault of Energy Star: It's developing at a time when quality standards are declining for other reasons. However, the Consumers Union in the U.S. complains that some tests are lax, and tests are conducted by manufacturers with no independent verification or spot checks.

Here is how some products are made more efficient:

Fridge: Better insulation; thicker, tighter-fitting doors; more effective refrigerants; more powerful compressors and more efficient condensers.

Dishwasher: Designs that use less water, to cut heating energy, and more efficient motors along with electronic control of water levels and heat.

Freezer: Better insulation combined with more efficient condensers and more powerful compressors.

Clothes washer: Front-load or efficient top-load designs that use less water, which means less energy to heat it, and faster final spin, removing moisture so clothes need less time in the dryer. Both advantages are minimal if clothes are washed in cold water and hung on a line to dry.

Dryer: Sensors that detect when clothes are dry and stop the machine. Controls allow temperature adjustment.

Computers: Automatically shut down to sleep or power-saver mode when not in use. LCD monitors use much less power than cathode-ray models. But beware the increased consumption with faster, more powerful processors, bigger memories and features like CD writers.

Printers: Automatically power down when not in use.

Television: Until now, main improvement has involved cutting electricity consumption in standby mode. New standards next month will improve efficiency when the set is on. Note, though, that bigger screens consume more power, and plasma sets use more energy than LCDs.