Europe's Energy Crisis Brings Calls for 5-Minute Showers. Not All Are Keen on That.

Dutch government's short-shower campaign urges a splash and dash to burn less natural gas to heat water. From a report: Carla Generaal used to spend 15 minutes in the shower, slowly raising the temperature as the minutes passed. Her boyfriend, who takes one-and-a-half-minute cold showers, couldn't fathom how she could be so wasteful. He bought her a five-minute sand-filled timer. "Sometimes I used it a bit to relax," she said of her extended shower routine. She would often daydream and lose track of time. "I think I'm probably not the only person in the world" doing that, she added. Now the Dutch government is trying to get the Noordwijk resident, a 37-year-old executive for an online retailer, and others like her to save some of that hot water and help build the Netherlands' energy reserves, following Russia's squeeze on gas supplies in response to Western sanctions for invading Ukraine. The average shower in the Netherlands lasts nine minutes, according to Milieu Centraal, a government-affiliated research organization. It says cutting that to under five minutes could save a household 60 cubic meters a year of natural gas, the fuel many homes use to heat water. Before the energy crisis, 40 billion cubic meters of gas was used annually nationwide, according to Pieter ten Bruggencate, a spokesman for the country's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. The speedier showers could also save each household about $130 a year, the government says. In one northeastern province, local authorities handed out timers to prod people along, just as Ms. Generaal's 8 did. The transition hasn't always been easy. Ms. Generaal's timer broke. There is some debate as to how it happened.

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