Don't overlook refrigerators

Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Global Warming | Newsweek

Nothing terribly new in this interview with Steven Chu, except I hadn't heard of this before:

We now make refrigerators that are four times more energy-efficient than the refrigerators of 1975—for half the inflation-adjusted cost. The energy we save with these refrigerators is more than all of the wind and solar photovoltaic energy we produce in the United States today. Just refrigerators.

Chu claims a lot is achievable in energy efficient buildings:

..we haven't taken full advantage of the technologies that exist today. They haven't been integrated into making smarter buildings that can be 60, 80 percent more energy-efficient than existing buildings.

He says buildings use 40% of US energy. Sounds surprisingly high.