almost true. for the longest time, I refused to get an AC, so i was running fans every summer. this year, I broke down and got an energy star AC and guess what, my electric bill is less than when i was without it, and this year's been hotter than the last two. hrm! all that suffering and I was wasting more energy! The AC is great, it's keeping my loft comfortable, but not entirely cool.
the person below me knows to defrost their freezer every so often to keep it running efficiently.