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The problem of hot homes in the sunbelt built without proper insulation or shading was solved, for example, by air conditioning. There is no question that air conditioning is useful in warm climes, but the climactically inappropriate home designs of developers created part of the demand. “The use of air conditioning allowed homeowners to enjoy a new degree of comfort, but a goodly portion of the residential air-conditioning load simply replaced the comfort once provided—at little environmental cost—by good design,” historian Adam Rome has found. In fact, air conditioning unit sales skyrocketed from a mere 43,000 in 1947 to 1,045,000 in 1953.39

For utilities, their success was actually a problem. Suddenly, they had a new peak load: the hottest day of the year when all the area’s air conditioners were blasting cool air out of vents. The solution, as Philip Sporn could have told you, was obvious: If the demand isn’t there, create it. The industry launched a major campaign to get consumers to adopt electric heaters. Unlike the amusement park load balancing of yore, there was nothing particularly romantic or interesting about an electric heater. 40

If air conditioning was often an improvement, the electric heater could claim no such distinction. It’s certainly no better than a furnace at providing energy service, and it’s far less efficient. Power plants take fuel and burn it, generating heat that’s transformed into the versatile energy form we call electricity. During the process, about two-thirds of the heat is lost. So if what you want is heat, it’s better just to burn something or use the sun’s free energy.41 That’s why, before the 1950s, only areas that had tons of cheap, hydroelectric power—thanks to federally backed programs in the Tennessee and Columbia River valleys—had adopted electric heat. 42

Promoting electric in other areas, however, required considerable effort. Many utilities adopted rate structures that virtually guaranteed that only those with heavy usage required by electric heat would get the cheapest rates. If you used a ton of electricity, it was cheap. If you didn’t use much, each kilowatt-hour was more expensive.43

General Electric and Westinghouse promoted the use of electric heat, too. Rome assigned them three interlinked reasons for promoting the inferior technology: “The two corporations sold electric heating units; the use of electric heat led to increased demand for a variety of household appliances, including air conditioners; and the overall growth of the power industry meant a growing market for electrical generating equipment, which the companies also manufactured.”44

Thus, electric heat, despite being a remarkably inefficient use of fossil fuels, was a win-win for the manufacturers and utilities again.

The building industry liked electric heat because “all-electric” homes were cheaper and simpler to build because builders did not have to put in the infrastructure for natural gas. The utilities made sure that builders knew these benefits. And as the era of the built-in appliance rose, some equipment manufacturers increasingly sold to them. Home buyers at Levittown weren’t just buying a house but also washing machines and televisions all rolled up into their mortgages!45 In later developments, electric heaters became inescapable, particularly in the Northeast.

Hiding just outside, or underneath, the advertisements for the all-electric house was another technological dream: harnessing the atom. Although the oft-quoted slogan that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” states the case too strongly, many scientists, engineers, and executives were convinced that eventually—in a time not far away in a galaxy very close to home—nuclear power would be cheaper than fossil fuels. As the 1970s wore on, the belief in the essential rightness of the build-and-grow strategy convinced American utility executives that they should continue to promote electricity usage, even when