GENEVA -- The Swiss government is telling people how to boil an egg. Seriously.
It is part of a million-dollar campaign to stop and reverse a steady increase of 2 to 3 percent yearly in consumption of electric power.
'If every Swiss household replaced its old refrigerator with a new model, that alone would save one-third of the annual output of a nuclear power plant,' said Transport and Energy Minister Adolf Ogi.
Launching what the government called 'Campaign Bravo,' Ogi said energy consumption could be stabilized in 4 or 5 years if recommendations are heeded.
Like boiling an egg on an electric fire.
Put one or more eggs in a saucepan along with just 1 centimeter (about half an inch) of water. Cover tightly with lid. Switch off electric plate as soon as water is boiling. Remove as usual for soft or harder eggs.
'That cuts power consumption by half,' Campaign Bravo advertisements say. 'And the same applies to other cooking methods.
'Cover food and turn off the oven half way through and the accumulated heat does the rest.'
Campaign Bravo has lots of other tips as well. Like advising everyone to replace standard light bulbs with the latest models lasting six times longer. And buying rechargeable batteries. Or using pressure cookers which cook meat in a quarter or vegetables in a fifth of the time.
Microwave ovens are particularly economical, people are told, along with a lot of other state-of-the-art cooking utensils such as ultra-quick coffee makers, chrome frying pans and double-sided pots.
What the government so far has failed to do is to tell people how to afford to throw out their old fridges and ovens and pots and pans and washing machines.
Microwaves are not exactly cheap. Paying $600 and more for just a small model is a lot even in Switzerland -- rich in general but still with 500,000 of its 6.5 million people said to be at poverty level.
Newspapers have pointed out that the government may also want to think about offering tax rebates or deductions to promote Campaign Bravo.
Instead, the government has warned that Switzerland will be unable to meet its own electricity needs by means of hydro-electric power from the Alps and nuclear plants of which five exist but more are banned for the time being.
And that will mean having to buy energy from neighboring countries.
So people are being asked to write in for complimentary brochures, phonograph records and video casettes on different ways of saving energy.
They are also being told in no uncertain manner to behave.
'Concessions were made by stopping further construction of nuclear power plants because of public concern, so everyone should reciprocate by doing their part in saving energy,' said an Energy Ministry pamphlet.
Unfortunately, Ogi and his Campaign Bravo advisers were not informed what happens when an egg is boiled in just a little water in a covered pan. They never tasted the result.
What happens is that all the white goes to the top in one hard lump and nothing is left to line the whole egg with a soft yellow yolk inside.
