The author seems to be conflating two different things in his choice of lifestyle under the same umbrella, one being energy conservation and the other a form of

The author seems to be conflating two different things in his choice of lifestyle under the same umbrella, one being energy conservation and the other a form of secular asceticism with the purpose of saving time and reducing life complexity. Some of his more controversial choices (based on the comments in this article) reflect more the later than the former. It is possible both to prepare (delicious) meals using barely no electricity (and even without burning any fuel), to do the laundry by hand using nothing but water and soap and to dry it at the clothesline. The drawback is that those are very time consuming tasks. The choice to eat only Soylent and to buy cheap clothes for single use seem to be motivated more by the desire to save time than by the idea of conserving energy. Both are worthy goals, to save time and energy but IMO it is very important to know how to strike a balance between efficiency and enjoyment. Otherwise we become the very robots we are trying not to be.