The company president appointed Al as energy czar to help manage a cluster of factories. Al decided to start off with the technology building that housed R&D and the machine shop. He would add heat and humidity sensors, track everything with a computer, and then cut back on energy use by adjusting both temperature and humidity. It should be possible to turn down the heat in the winter by bringing up the humidity.

The idea was sound; use relative humidly to drop the temperature and the heating bills in the winter. It was cheaper to add water to the air than heat, and humidity made you feel warmer. Reduce body evaporation by boosting humidity and you feel warmer. The opposite should work in the summer. Keep the air dry and raise the AC temperature setting to lower energy use.