More Ways To Conserve Energy?

berniecase asks: "I live up in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm trying to find more ways to conserve electricity. Thus far, I've installed compact fluorescent lights from Lights of America in the most heavily used fixtures in my apartment and I've tried to use less lighting and heat to keep the bills down, and keep the Californians with electricity. I'm curious as to what others are doing? What about LED lighting and such? Are there other things I can do to conserve electricity and what kinds of suggestions would /. readers have for me and others?"

Comments

Turn Off Your Computer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of wasting electricity by sitting there reading Slashdot, turn it off and go outside.

Turn off the TV and watch a sunset.

Go to bed early. (Don't leave lights on.)

Don't cook your food. (Goes for either electric or gas stove - many power plants in CA and the like are natural gas fired. There is a shortage in natural gas, and that's driving up demand for it, making electricity expensive.)

Open your curtains. (So you don't have to turn on the lights.) (As a bonus, it's likely that the sun will warm up your house.)

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Above all, relax. It's not that big a deal. You won't be too bad off, no matter what the situation is.

Re:Turn Off Your Computer!

[OctaneZ]

Open your curtains. (So you don't have to turn on the lights.) (As a bonus, it's likely that the sun will warm up your house.)

Actually you are more likely to gain a power savings if you close your curtains. Currents can do an extraordinary amount to reduce drafts around windows (one of the leading causes of heat leakage from a house). They also add another layer of insulation between the rooms you are trying to keep warm and the heat conducting glass. In our old house closing the curtains at night, and when people were not in the room gave us a significant savings in our gas bill.
-OctaneZ

Insulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure your hot water lines are insulated. At your local hardware store, get some of those, ummm, whatchamacallit, plastic that you put over the windows and then blowdry to tighten. Though not very convenient, it works. Oh yeah, incandescent lamps are 95% efficient in the winter because you need the heat anyway. Because of that, it may appear that your heating bill went up. But in the summer the fluorescents really help.

Re:Insulation

[K-Man]

Most lights are near the ceiling, and the hot air generated stays up there. Try to encourage your downstairs neighbors to use incandescents.

Leaking power

[Anonymous Coward]

Many devices leak power (have standby power use). All those AC adapters (even when the gadget they power is off), your instant-on TV, the cable box, and your VCR use electricity even when they are "off". So, don't just turn it off, unplug it too!

Ref: http://eetd.lbl.gov/Standby/Articles/Purdue.html

Easy ways to conserve energy :

[Lupulack]

Up here in the Cold North we're often told that the hot water heater is the single biggest user of electricity ( or gas, depending ).

Consequently we've become fairly proficient at saving hot water. Energy saving shower heads ( gives the same pressure with less water ), insulating blankets around the water tank, and even a timer to turn off the tank when you won't want any more hot water ( 8pm say ) and back on in time to have hot water for your shower ( 5am? ). You could be more clever with your own schedule, but these are all inexpensive and easy to do.

Counterflow heat exchange

[K-Man]

Here's a cool invention for recovering heat from hot water going down the drain. Apparently the way water runs down the inside of a large-diameter sewer pipe is actually pretty good for heat exchange, so you don't need a complicated manifold to get good efficiency. Another good feature is that it reduces the size of the tank needed in the water heater, since peak loads like showers will also produce lots of recycled heat.

You might also try just taking baths and letting the water cool in the tub before you drain it. I haven't calculated, but I suspect you could get back a lot of energy this way.

Washers and dryers also tend to waste a lot of heat by dumping hot stuff without recovering heat. There are some new designs for "heat pump dryers" (hint: put into search engine) which condense the evaporated water and pump the heat back into the clothes. You could also build a heat exchanger that would cool the dryer output and bring the heat indoors; you just need to handle the lint and runoff.

Re:Electric heaters

[K-Man]

Maybe he's draining the oil out and burning it.

Re:Screw California!

[K-Man]

I'm from California, and I can't really disagree with you, but I think the flip side of this deregulation is that PG&E is now bidding on *your* power, all over North America. That's how the wholesale market is supposed to operate. So when Bush says he "sees a ripple effect" that's idiot-speak for "your local power company is selling kilowatt-hours on ebay". After all, does your utility want to sell you power for 10 cents a kwh, or sell to PG&E for 30?

Of course, the solution is to drill for more oil, not to conserve, according to President Clampett.

Move to the mountains

[funkman]

Move to a tiny mountain shack and send letters through the post office...

Oops, that was already done.

Printed Material

[bluelip]

Is reading printed material a true saving of energy? How much power is really saved? It seems that printing would use more energy(and resources),

Re:Gas shortage?

[peccary]

Almost. It's the supply that's constant, demand is rising approximately 2% / yr.

Power saving (fp too?)

[FLaMeBoY]

Probably the biggest amount of energy could be saved by using a solar water heating setup. This of course might not be possible (say in apartments/rental property) but saves a huge amount of power. Here in New Zealand where we have pretty cheap electricity solar water heaters pay for themselves off in a year or two in most places. The initial cost can be a bit off putting but your local government/power board might offer incentives. Some of the newer ones here are pretty awesome and need absolutely stuff all maintaining (most use anodes inside them which need replacing every few years, depending on water quality/ plumbing/usage etc). If this is too much get some thermal wrapping for your existing hot water piping and adjust the thermometer. Hope this helps a bit. I studied efficient housing last year, and know people who install this stuff incase you are wondering.

Re:Electric heaters

[autocracy]

Up north in Maine and areas around there, electric heating is a death wish - the bill would kill you. We get around that problem by uing boilers. They create a fire that uses heating oil and boils water within the pipes. Of course, you'd need to install radiators for this.

They're very efficient and well worth the cost too...

My karma's bigger than yours!

Other ways to conserve power

[Leknor]

• Read printed materials, aka: a book, newspaper, magizine.
• Get some friends together and play basketball or tag football.
• Go to your local museum.
• Do chairty stuff.

You can turn off lights/computers/etc and turn down your AC for all of the above activities and as an added bonus most will make you a better person.

Leknor

Check out HomePower

[OlympicSponsor]

It's a magazine and a website. It's mostly about how to setup your own renewable (largely solar, some wind, a little "other") energy generation. But they've also got some tips/tools for reducing usage.
--
MailOne

conserving electricity

[grasshopper5]

Wow, a lot of crack smoking out there. Heat your house with light bulbs? Insulate your pipes with window plastic? I bet your cave is nice and comfy. Compact fluorescents are a good idea, but Lights of America have a high failure rate. Phillips, GE, and Panasonic are more reliable brands. And they have warrantees on their bulbs. Concentrate on the biggest energy users in your place-- typically water heating, refrigeration and then things like lighting, small appliances, etc. To avoid ghost loads (from things like instant-on TV's, VCR's that have a cute clock on them), put your appliances on power strips. flip the switch and they are really off. Easier than plugging and unplugging everything. Insulate your water heater with an insulating blanket, whether it is gas or electric. Be careful to not hinder any air flow for gas water heaters. Insulate your pipes with the foam tubes, not window plastic. You can get them for about 6 ft/$1. Get as thick as possible. Concentrate on the hot pipes and the first 3-5 feet of the cold (coming from the water heater). Insulation in your attic is a good idea, but is a bigger expense. Put at least R-38 in your attic. Cellulose is good for most of the country, fiberglass more common. If you are doing it yourself, fiberglass is easier to install. Read magazines like Home Power, Home Energy, Solar Today. And turn your appliances off when you are not using them. One last thought-- hang up your laundry. If all Americans hung their laundry instead of using dryers, we could turn off all of the nuclear power plants in the US.