USA Today: U.S. consumers are wasting $4 billion annually to power clothes dryers that, unlike other common household appliances, have barely improved their energy efficiency since the 1970s, a report today says.
A typical electric dryer may now consume as much energy per year as the combined use of an efficient new refrigerator, clothes washer and dishwasher, reports the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Homes pay more than $100 annually to run an electric dryer and $40 for a gas one, its report finds.
"Dryers have gone largely unnoticed," says Noah Horowitz, NRDC senior scientist, noting regulators have focused on other appliances. Since the 1970s, he says U.S. efficiency requirements have been updated seven times for fridges but only three times — each one modest — for dryers. As a result, new fridges — and dishwashers and washing machines — have more than halved their energy use.
Yet, he says Americans spend $9 billion annually to operate inefficient dryers, 75% of which are electric. He says they could save $4 billion of that — and reduce heat-trapping carbon-dioxide emissions — if all electric units were updated to the most efficient hybrid heat pump model sold overseas, mostly in Europe.
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