The Great Game

I makes sense to target conservation projects on were it is easiest to gain ground. For household energy use the fridge has been, and continues to be one of the largest energy consumers in the typical home.

Jax

Take the lowly refrigerator. After the oil shocks of the 1970s, the federal government mandated higher efficiency standards for refrigerators that, alone, have made it unnecessary to build hundreds of power plants, energy experts say. Today's models use only about a third of the power consumed by models 30 years ago.

I love the historical note

Last week, the government announced steps that may boost refrigerator efficiency another 30 percent beginning in 2011 - saving consumers $10 billion in electricity and cutting energy requirements by the equivalent of more than 230 power plants.

But consumers don't have to wait. Larry Schussler's company in Arcata, Calif., sells the Sun Frost RF-12, which uses just 171 kilowatt hours of power a year, 51 percent better than today's federal standard. There's a downside though. Sun Frost doesn't have an icemaker, holds only about 10 cubic feet of groceries, and costs about $2,400. "We're not making much of a dent in the overall market yet," Mr. Schussler concedes. "They sell 8 million fridges in the US and we're just tiny fraction - less than 1 percent of that. But we're leading the way."

The company ships the machines worldwide, especially to places that have no power grid. They're so efficient they can run using just a modest solar array. And Sun Frost expects them to last well over 20 years.

For those who don't want to sacrifice space or an icemaker, Frigidaire's FRT21FR7E has 20 cubic feet of space and is still 28 percent more efficient than federal standards, tops among comparably equipped refrigerators. Suggested price: $799. (More Gadgets)