John, improvements in appliance efficiency attributable to CA policy notwithstanding (and the illusory efficiency improvements in CA home construction not-notwithstanding): it's easy for a state to reduce electricity consumption by making it more expensive (AMI, TOU). I'm sure pols in Sacramento and academics at Stanford have had many cheery champagne brunches celebrating the widening energy poverty gap, that \"decoupling\" the price of electricity from consumption by simply raising raising rates when it was most convenient represented some kind of social achievement:

In 1976, for instance, after he explained to California Governor Jerry Brown...that a proposed nuclear power plant would not be needed if there were better efficiency standards for refrigerators the proposed plant was not built [Diablo Canyon wasn't necessary thanks to efficient refrigerators? Who knew!]. And the following year, standards for new refrigerators and freezers went into effect. Brown recalls Rosenfeld's influence:
\"He gave validation to the very unorthodox notion that economic growth could be decoupled from energy growth. He was really the guru of efficiency....Since 1973 per capita electricity use in California has remained flat, while for the rest of the nation it increased nearly 50%. That trend was attributed in part to the energy conservation efforts led by Rosenfeld.\"

Since 1973 the population of California has doubled. Either: 1) the efficiency of appliances has doubled, too, and the price of electricity has remained flat. Or: 2) the state with the sixth-most expensive electricity in the U.S. has efficiently turned it into a status symbol. What are the chances?
Energy consumption can only be decoupled from economic growth only in fevered imaginations of the world's wealthiest economies. Everyone else knows better, and everyone else holds the keys to the future of our planet.

The Godfather of Energy Efficiency