WEB SITE GENERATES WAYS TO SAVE POWER.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

The specter of summer blackouts in California may soon be a boon to pocketbooks.

Conservation is the buzz of summer. But with the governor begging for energy reduction in order to reduce blackouts, how can Californians who have already cut out many of their comfort gizmos reduce even further?

Try an energy tuneup courtesy of scientists whose forebears sparked the Nuclear Age - and the atomic bomb.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory this week launched the nation's first interactive energy scorecard, at savepower.lbl.gov - a Flash energy tuneup geared to slash power bills and coax conservation rebates from the state.

The ``20 Percent Solution'' Web site can induce Californians, already the nation's most efficient users of electricity, to become even stingier. And residents of energy-rich Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale can create extra juice for their blacked-out neighbors.

``This is unique,'' said Allen Chen, spokesman for the University of California at Berkeley-based laboratory's environmental energy and technologies division. ``We're not nearly trimming to the bone.''

Exhausted by talk of further conservation when you already tell the kids to kill the lights at every turn of the house?

All the Lawrence Berkeley site requires is three point-and-clicks - one of five regions throughout the state, such as South Coast or Desert; what size home or apartment you live in, such as a medium single-family home of 2,000 square feet; and whether or not you use an air conditioner.

Bingo, your solution to cut your energy bill by 20 percent.

And, depending on your budget and comfort level, you can do it with little to no cost.

Too cheap to replace that power-sucking air conditioner (an 11 percent savings)? Try opening windows and running a fan instead (for a 15 percent whack). Weary of that noisy old fridge? Try a new Star-Energy model (2 percent).

Tired of the tumble of the electric clothes drier? Try unplugging it and line-drying the wash (a 3 percent savings). For that matter, try air-drying dinnerware (0.4 percent); unplugging unnecessary TVs and grouping the kids in front of one tube (0.4 percent); and unplugging the electric range in favor of microwaved TV dinners (0.4 percent); and replacing hot iridescent bulbs with fluorescent ones (4 percent).

Energy-conscious devotees can even kill the hot tub (10 percent), or turn it tepid (5 percent).

It's all in the name of 30 years of government energy research and effective conservation, and unlike any energy-saving tip Web site already offered by the likes of Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, officials said.

``This is the one (site) that really focuses on what you can do, with savings estimated for each recommendation,'' said lab energy researcher Rich Brown.

The state's 20/20 Program is a voluntary measure designed to rebate customers 20 percent of their power bills for cutting energy use 20 percent this summer from last year. Residents in the city of Los Angeles, which opted out of deregulation and have been immune from its effects, are not under the state program.

But a similar program known as Cash for Conservation may be implemented in Los Angeles this week for reductions of 10 percent. Department of Water and Power officials called the Lawrence Berkeley Web site a model for the state.

``It's nicely done; the low-cost measures make sense,'' said DWP strategic planner Angelina Galetiva, manager of the city's Green L.A. programs.

``Conservation doesn't mean sitting in the dark and drinking hot beer; it no longer means having to do without,'' she said. ``It means going high- tech.''

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CUT YOUR KILOWATTS

Source: Livermore Berkeley Laboratory (http://savepower.lbl.gov)