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How Are You Conserving Energy?
ThosLives asks: "With oil again pushing historic nominal prices and all sorts of articles on alternative power, what are people doing practically to reduce their energy consumption? It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'. Has anyone come up with really nifty ways to cut their energy consumption without sacrificing their technical lifestyle? What methods work best for you? At what point (price of gasoline, electricity, etc) will you start to change your behavior?"
"Take me, for example. I'm looking to cut much of my consumption, including moving closer to work to cut my commute, possibly putting a throttle restrictor plate in my car, buying fluorescent lights, and even trying to build a small wind/solar generator. I love technology, and I'd love to see how it can be used to reduce demands for power rather than just being able to make more power more cheaply (conservation arguably being the better side of the energy coin). I'm even interested in how folks conserve other things too - I'm always amazed at how many plastic (or paper) bags the grocer insists on giving me every week and how much waste society generates in the form of packaging."
Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. Not only do they save you energy/money, they're still pretty geeky! I've been replacing my traditional bulbs as they wear out, and these have much longer lifespans (which more than makes up for initial cost). The only thing I noticed when I first got them was a slight delay turning on, but I've gotten so used to that I no longer even notice.
[no carrier]
Sure people will be annoyed, but bigger and more the blackouts are, the more power everyone will save. Right?
I wear warmer clothing (sweaters, etc) and thick socks, and eat more, and I use the house heater a lot less.
Also, accelerating like an anemic grandmother does wonder on your car's fuel consumption. That and using a stick shift (manual transmission for the SOTBE)
"Piter, too, is dead."
...by sitting back and doing nothing.
Oh, you mean electrical energy? Well, 90% of the lights in my house are compact florescent. Maybe 15 bulbs x 70Wh savings = 1050 watt reduction.
I have to drive 1h/day (no choice), but my car is decent on gas. I want an electric-hybrid car. Solar panels would be nice too. Its sunny here a good % of the year.
I turn off my heat when I leave for work. It's freezing cold here in Ohio, but I'd rather have to bundle up when I get home than interrupt my downloads. I live in an apartment, so there's little danger of my pipes freezing. With two machines running 24/7, you've got sacrifice something.
"from the bricks to the booth...I predict the future like Cleo the psychic..."
available here
On Slashdot. Now I only reload every other second.
I try and sleep instead of working, but sometimes I forget to turn off the monitor, so maybe it doesn't count?
From the fell-asleep-at-the-keyboard department
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
that would require flying.
sitting most of the days at home on a computer(no fossil fuels used, although i can only hope that my electricity comes from nuclear powerplant).
walking to nearby grocery store to get the food.
thats about it.
had i more disposable income i'd certainly use more energy.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
switching off my monitor when my computer is on overnight
it's not meant to be funny since my computer also serve as internet sharing server and will soon be webserver
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
historic nominal prices
Huh?
Take me, for example. I'm looking to cut much of my consumption, including moving closer to work to cut my commute, possibly putting a throttle restrictor plate in my car, buying fluorescent lights, and even trying to build a small wind/solar generator. I love technology, and I'd love to see how it can be used to reduce demands for power rather than just being able to make more power more cheaply (conservation arguably being the better side of the energy coin). I'm even interested in how folks conserve other things too - I'm always amazed at how many plastic (or paper) bags the grocer insists on giving me every week and how much waste society generates in the form of packaging.
Good grief. Have you considered Thorazine?
My rent has electricity included. I intend to get my money's worth.
Energy conservation doesn't solve the energy problem!
The problem is that we are using energy far quicker than it is created or the by products of energy production can be consumed.
All conservation does it make the energy source last longer it does not solve the under lying problem. I tend to the idea that prolonging our dependence is a very bad idea.
Unless you're significantly shortening that drive, the upfront costs of relocation will burn through years' worth of fuel savings.
possibly putting a throttle restrictor plate in my car
Are you insane?!? If you want to drive slower, then drive slower. That's a good thing. Do not make your car drastically more unsafe by removing its ability to accelerate quickly when the need arises. When an out-of-control semi is bearing down on me, I'd rather lose an ounce of gas to my foot on the floorboard than a gallon of blood to my face on his grill.
buying fluorescent lights
I'd do this if I could find a nice brand that didn't flicker and had a spectrum reasonably close to an incandescent (or better, the sun). I can't stand that 60Hz strobe or the washed-out colors. Any suggestions?
I'm always amazed at how many plastic (or paper) bags the grocer insists on giving me
OK, I'm with you there. Basically, I'm one of those greedy, selfish jerks who refuses to compromise his lifestyle. However, I was also raised with "waste not, want not" and I hate the gratuitous use of resources. If I'm only buying one or two things at a store, I tell the cashier that I don't want a bag. I turn the lights off when I leave a room. I use DPMS on my monitors so that they're not painting a picture while I'm asleep. I keep my tires properly inflated. I have an electronic thermostat that's set to 68F during the day (in winter) and cooler at night. In short, I've configured my environment so that it doesn't try to make me comfortable when I'm not around to enjoy it. If everyone took those simple steps, I think we'd save a lot without sacrificing a bit of the creature comforts.
Oh, and if you're one of those "free heat because I'm on Welfare" people who leaves the heat cranked and the windows open, I hope you catch pneumonia and die.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Some people might argue that 20 minutes is too far to walk when I can drive it in 5 and parking is free at my office.
But the way I see it is that programming does not provide my body with the excercise it needs. Fresh air and a brisk walk in the morning helps wake me up.
I also walk to pick up small things like milk, bread, or a bottle of wine.
... to find a dealer that would sell me a 35w version of mobile athlon64 and a desktop motherboard that would work with it. Kinda difficult around here.
Next, I have no air conditioning. I live in the nice cool basement in the summer and one of the two heated rooms of the house in the winter. Good windows (with vacuum inbetween two glass panels) also reduce your heating bill tremendously. Flourescent lights are double edged sword - just ask anyone in the power distribution business. They tend to shift phase and change the shape of the current - you can check that with osciloscope.
Oh yeah and shooting assholes who enforce CC&Rs or other restrictions on clothes lines.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I've never given it a thought.
I have 4 computers that run constantly... I tend to leave the lights on all day...
My air conditioning stays at 65 (I like it cold)
and I pay my bill when it arrives.
does it make me a bad person? Not really, just lazy.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
Thanks to the mac mini, my pc can stay off pretty much all the time, and the power consumption of the mac mini is like 1/20 of what my pc with tons of hard disks and pretty demanding video card needed. :) (9.5w vs over 190w for my pc...) Having an LCD monitor will also lower the bill as it use 1/3 of the power of an equivalent CRT. Not to mention all the time saved since I dont have anything to do with OSX compared to linux constant need of time consuming administration.
Also, I use the subway / bus, much cheaper than owning a car, and I actualy get to work faster with the subway than in a car waiting in line in a traffic jam. I use my bike during the summer.
Probably the biggest thing is to turn down thermostats in winter and up in summer. Electricity/Heating Fuel are the biggest bills aside from debt payments, it appears.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I don't mean computerize your home.
I'm betting most people live in older dwellings. My house was built in the 50's when no one cared about energy. This will only apply to people that own homes, but here goes.
Windows:
I've replaced my windows. It was a large expense ($10,000+) and I won't get my money back in increased home value or energy savings for as long as I live here, but I will save energy in two ways. First, and most obvious, I have more energy efficient windows. The original windows were single pane and many were large fixed pane windows. The new windows are double-pane and insulated (low-e and all that) and I replaced fixed pane with opening windows. Now I can get a nice breeze through the house so I don't have to switch from heater in the morning to A/C in the day.
Insulation:
My home has vaulted ceilings with exposed beams. There is some old hard fiberglass type insulation there that's maybe 4 inches thick. With a large unshaded southern exposure, I get a lot of heat pouring down. This is great in the winter, but miserable and costly in the summer. I'm putting insulation between the exposed beams with drywall covering. Not only do I get better insulation, but I've now given the house a more modern look.
Fans:
I've got a ceiling fan in almost every room. It works great for pushing warm air out of hot rooms and into cold ones in the winter or drawing cooler outside air in through windows in the summer. I'm not sure about the efficiency or energy savings here, but it sure does make a room more comfortable.
Most of these items will not return any value to the house, but in the end I'm more comfortable in my home and I'm saving some energy costs.
Okay, I know it's not electricity exactly, but...
- install low flow toilets or those kits that limit the amount of water per toilet flush.
- consider a front load washing machine.
- and stop washing your car every freaking weekend for crying out loud! Especially those of you who live in Seattle. It rains every couple of days anyway!!!! Same goes for your lawns. Brown is okay. It will grow back.
stabbed, hitchiking is great way to...
.....
/.?
No, I don't want to see that
save on fuel and potentially meet...
I don't think you should be doing that while driving
sorry, where was I, oh yeah, meet interesting people who will even let you use their cell phone to connect to the
OH GOD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HAND?!?!
internet while driving.....is there a scream tag on
Monstar L
I don't let my Hummer sit idling in the driveway just to hear it run, as often as I used to. :)
Lets face it. A large chunk of the gas used in this country is used in ever increasing commutes to work. More and more people are spending increasing amounts of time on the road, often at low or single digit speeds. Fear not though, for there is a solution. A solution that not only will help you save money on fuel expenditures, but reduce congestion on the freeways of America, and increase the amount of liesure time for all participants. This solution is so elegant, that it can be summed up in three measly little words.
GET LAID OFF!
Getting laid off could be the best thing that ever happened to you and the environment. You will reduce that amount of pollution you produce. You will have a steady income. Your job stress will disappear. You will have no commute. And best of all, you will have the free time to complete all those F/OSS projects you've been meaning to complete.
That's right folks! Get laid off today and you can reap all these benefits, save energy, and get your money back from the government. So what are you waiting for, go get laid off today!
Nice Marmot
Not an easy thing to do, and not everyone can do it, but one thing that really surprises me about Tucson, and this is true for many cities, I think, is how incredibly inappropriate the building materials are that people use. Most of the houses in Tucson are made of wood, with minimal insulation and huge black roofs to collect maximal solar energy during the long summers. Many houses are cooled with swamp coolers, which typically go through 100 gallons of water a day, even though this is a desert climate. Many people have lawns, which of course have to be watered daily throughout most of the year.
When we moved to Tucson, we knew we weren't going to buy a wood house, because wood is simply a lousy material for this climate. Back in the days before massive cookie-cutter developments, houses in Tucson were made of 12-18" thick adobe or 6-8" burnt adobe/slump block masonry. This material is good for the climate, because it has a lot of thermal mass. This means that if you get the thickness right, the outside temperature at night will be coming through the walls during the day, and the outside temperature during the day will be coming through the walls at night. So if you open the windows at night, and close them during the day, you can be fairly comfortable even in the heat of summer, without using any heating at all, and in the winter you might want to put on a sweater, but you'll basically be warm enough, again without any heating.
However, it turns out that buying a house built this way nowadays is quite expensive, unless you buy an older house, and older houses have the problem that most of them have wood floors, meaning that you're very vulnerable to termites.
We were very fortunate to find a builder who is working on renewable-energy housing right in downtown Tucson - our house is made of concrete masonry, but is insulated on the outside, so rather than depending on the diurnal cycle, it is isolated from the outside temperature swings. The thermal mass of the all-masonry construction and the 10" thick concrete floor mean that once you get it to a certain temperature, it tends to want to stay there. So it's quite cheap to keep cool, even in the dead of summer.
On top of this, there's a solar hot water heater and 1500WDC solar panel on the roof, so that although we still draw energy from the grid, we draw a lot less of it, and our air conditioning can run mostly off the solar panel during the day, when energy is in most demand. To back up the solar hot water heater we have an electric instant-hot-water heater from Seisco that works really well - the hot water out of the tap has a really consistent temperature with no pulsing.
That's really our big way of saving energy. We'd like to have a hybrid car, because unfortunately we aren't quite able to go cold turkey on automotive transportation, but for now we're making do with our Honda Civic, which gets pretty good milage.
As for computers, unfortunately I think the best solution is to always buy newer ones, but it costs energy to make them, so this isn't perfect. Newer computers do seem to use less energy as long as you're not pushing them to extreme clock speeds. Probably using just a laptop would help, but for work it's really handy to have a faster disk and processor.
Do that and you will have blocked the cooling and ventilation to the underside of your roof.
Hello new roof every 5 years!
But seriously - you don't know what you are doing. All you will acomplish is cooked shingles and rotted beams.
My wife and I drive a Jetta Wagon with the TDI (diesel) engine. We do our best to drive it smoothly with no hard acceleration or braking and are averaging 46 mpg. There are a few biodiesel stations in our area (NC Triangle) that offer 80/20 fuel. Here is a website with details on the benefits of biodiesel and the location of pumps in the triangle.
Other than that we: keep the a/c high and the heat low, use energystar ratings as one of our primary shopping factors, and generally don't use more energy than we need.
link
It's focused on gas emissions, but most of the suggestions are about reducting the energy we use. There is a nice GHG calculator to get an idea were you are starting from.
It's an easy 2-mile walk from home to where I work. I drive a small diesel car anyway.
The landlord pays the heat & A/C for my modest 1-bedroom apartment...but with few exterior walls & appropriate clothing, my thermostat is almost always set to "OFF".
I turn off unneeded lights, shut the 'fridge door, don't run a home server farm, etc. - my electric bill is usually about $15 per month.
I don't know if a 400% jump in energy prices would bother me that much. If the rest of America lived like I do, our country would probably have lots of surplus oil, natural gas, etc. to export.
It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
His non profit site has lots of information: Rocky Mountain Institute. I would also search around the web for webcasts or interviews with him.
I read Slashdot in lynx. Does that count?
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
My roomate and I have a long standing battle over control of the lights in our apartment.
:)
he wants them all on, I don't.
I have sensative eyes, and can see just fine by starlight, and I don't see the need to waste the electricity on lights when I'm not in the room.
He wants the lights to be on when he enters the room. He doesn't like entering a dark room.
So, our lights go on and off a lot.
Pretty Pictures!
Since it's rained a whole bunch more in LA then in Seattle this year, you have to use LA as your "city where it rains a whole shit load".
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
... replace my ancient oil-fired furnace with a much more efficient one (still oil-fired). I went from a 1.0 gph nozzle to a 0.7 gph nozzle, and the furnace still runs less than before.
I also consolidated many of the 6 servers I had running on old hardware onto 1 or 2 honkin' servers. The power required went down by a 1.25 kW. Over a month, that was 915 kW-hr. At 8 cents/kW-hr, that's $75/month right there.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Energy is always conserved, without a bit of help from anyone.
Now if we could only find a way to conserve entrophy.
1. no car! Bike or Pub Trans...(borrow a car in dire need only!) 2. clock thermostat for when I am at work AND asleep 3. turn off lights when you leave a room, that is why there is a switch, Hello Edison? 4. RECYCLE, it may not save you energy directly, but will save it in the long run. On that last note, what is to be done with things like, bic pens when they die, bic razors, bic lighters(nothing against bic, just too lazy to write or spell disposable many times) too bad bic doesn't make toothbrushes, they could make all the things I wonder where and how to recycle. There are probably more, but it is friday evening here, and.... beer calls! in bottles that return for deposit! Cheers!
Sig Hansen?
(Downtown Toronto if you want to know) The closest grocery stores are 5, 7 and 15 minutes away. There are two 24 hour transit lines within a 5 minute walk and 2 others which operate 06:00-01:20. My work is a quiet 20-40 minute transit ride away. I do not own a car. I spent $5000 on a high efficiency furnace which cut my gas bill by 60% and my electricity bill by 30% (with 8 months of cold weather it pays off very quickly!). I keep my house at 19C/66F. Also note, raising and lowering your house temperature actually uses more energy than keeping it at a constant temperature. I turn off the lights, if no one is in the room the lights are off.
Try wearing long johns to bed, and using electric blankets instead of turning up the thermostat.
1) Replaced all my lights with flourescent.
2) Insulated (my 1940s era house had no insulation and now has it in the ceiling and walls).
3) Replaced my 1960s aluminum sliders with Pella double-pane argon filled low-e-coated double-gasketed windows.
4) Replaced my water-heater with a Noritz on-demand model.
5) Ride my bike to work about when practical (about 50% of the days annually).
6) Keep my car in good repair and drive it gently. Not only directly saves fuel but also the components, all of which require energy to manufacture. For example, I've only replaced the front brake pads once, at 140,000+ miles.
7) Replaced my 20 year old fridge with a new energy-star model.
8) Got rid of a second freezer.
9) Replaced top-load washer with energy-star front-loader with high-speed spin.
10) Replaced electric dryer with natural-gas dryer.
11) DISCONNEDTED IDLE EQUIPMENT!! I got an energy meter as a present and in true geek fashion started measuring the usage of everything in the house. It wasn't too hard to kill about 100 watts of 24/7 energy use. Some of the 24/7 power-eaters (these are all idle power in the "off" state):
Subwoofer: 15 watts
Livingroom stereo: 18 watts
TV: 8 watts
2 VCRs: 12 watts
UPS: 20+ watts
etc.
But does this make sense? Certainly not from an economic standpoint. I don't really get cold or spend much time at home during the week so my total energy bill before I got married was generally around $50/month. Even if I could reduce it to $0 I couldn't justify many of the purchases. Now that I have a wife and daughter (with home-washed diapers) at home the equation has shifted but energy savings still don't justify the purchases - they are mostly side-benefits of other activities:
1) Replaced all my lights with flourescent.
OK this one was intended for energy savings and easily justified on a cost/benefit basis. It's also nice to change lights a lot less frequently.
2) Insulated.
I live near Berkeley. We don't have/generally need air conditioning. I don't know if the insulation will ever payback the $1800 cost but it makes the house much more comfortable and adds a bit of sound insulation as well. The benefit is most noticable on the few very hot summer days when insulation is the only thing keeping the house from getting into the 90s like it used to.
3) Replaced the windows.
We were looking at shutters and blinds (funny thing about getting married - matching sheets are no longer acceptable window "treatments") and decided that we should get rid of the hideous aluminum inserts before spending $$ on window coverings. After much hunting we found we liked the Pella windows the best. At around $26,000 to replace all the windows and buy wood shutters and drapes we will never, ever, recover the cost on energy savings. But like the wall insulation, the double-pane windows make the house much more quiet and pleasant, both thermally and visually.
4) Replaced my water-heater with a Noritz on-demand model.
The water heater was getting old and I wanted to replace it before it broke on its own. The on-demand allowed me to put the heater in the crawlspace and free up room in the house. It won't pay for itself in energy savings but at typical construction costs per square foot it has already paid for itself in increased floor space. It is also nice to have unlimited hot water and the flexibility to leave the heater at 106 so all we have to do is jump in the shower and turn on full-hot (no adjusting necessary) but also be able to push the button to temporarily get 160 degree water to run the diapers. Of course I did all the work myself including trenching and running a new 1.25" gas line, running the power and control connections and rerunning the plumbing. The cost equation would be vastly different if I had hired the job out.
5) Ride my bike to work about when practical (about 50% of the days annually).
I just like bike riding and get my exerci
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
We got one of the goverment subsidised energy audits. The main this he recommended was putting in a new high-efficiency furnace. Which we did, one of those 93% jobbies. This enabled us to keep the house at a lower temperature while keeping the sasme level of comfort. It's supposed to cut at least 30% off our natural gas bill.
n/t
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Even though I'd rather live in the country.
Plus: I walk to work. It takes about 20 minutes. Energy: zero, plus I get part of my daily exercise.
Plus: I rarely drive. Public transportation is great here (Boston). When I do drive it's usually with friends on a weekend, so the per-person energy cost is lower.
Plus: As far as embodied energy, shopping etc. go, there's economies of scale: more people are fed, clothed, etc. with less energy spent per unit on transportation to the stores (yet somehow everything costs more in the city, I don't get it).
Minus: I live in an old, poorly insulated building with an overactive heating system that I can't turn down. Fortunately heat is included in my rent, otherwise I don't know how I'd keep the windows open in January to stay comfortable.
Minus: My apartment stove is electric (waste of energy), and I have to drive to the laundromat (waste of energy) and use an electric dryer (waste of energy) because there's nowhere to hang up all my clothes on a clothesline...
When I lived in the Bay Area I would spend 40 minutes driving up 880 in traffic burning fuel the whole way. I then moved to NYC, and walked to work. Got rid of the car, stopped burning fuel. Since leaving NYC, I now telecommute and work from home. If I need to go somewhere I ride a bike. By living in a city, I don't need to travel far for all my needs. I can walk to restaurants and the grocery store. (2 blocks to the nearest). Less stress, more exercise, more free time, less energy... and its cheaper...
My rent went up by $300, but I spend $300 less a month gassing up the car.
My electricity and heating bill went from about $75 a month to about $20. Not a big deal, but hey, whatever.
And the 20 minute walk means I'm like less fat and stuff. And walking is much less stressful than putting up with fucktards in traffic.
"Noting that the two big energy "hogs" are the hot water heater and the dryer, decided to try drying clothes on a rack."
The rack is a good idea, and it puts humidity back into the air (an important part of feeling warm). You might want to consider either a programmable timer on the water heater, or an "on demand" water heater.
my monitors for light, and my processors to make coffee...
The lunatic is in my head
You don't have to put up with accelerating like an anemic grandmother, if you've got a manual transmission. Use the fuel for acceleration, then shift to neutral for downhill/flat coasting will really decrease your car's fuel consumption- though I'm in Western Oregon, we have more hills here to take advantage of, might not work in the plains.
Manual tranmission all by itself will increase your energy-to-movement conversion by 50% as well, as we found out the hard way when my brother converted my grandmother's Datsun 720 to electric (we wondered why it only got 26 miles to a charge- then realized that the electric engine was never generating low enough torque to get the automatic to shift out of first gear).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I do my best not to converve energy, actually
as we all know, the byproduct of poorly engineered systems that use energy, is that they also generate heat.
well with something like 17-18 degrees C in my dorm, I keep all the heaviest peices of computing gear I have running, just to ehat the damn place.
had this not been the case, I still think I would do little about the electrical energy I consume, howerver I wouldn't buy an suv when something smaller and more efficient will do
Move sig!
Noting that the two big energy "hogs" are the hot water heater and the dryer
:)
That would be simply, 'water heater.'
If you own your home, you might try an on-demand water heating system. Not only is it much more energy efficient, you effectively have 'unlimited' hot water for long showers with the SO.
- As bulbs burn out, we've replaced them with fluorescents. These days there are even 3-way fluorescent bulbs and fluorescent exterior flood lights (which coupled with a motion sensor are even better at saving energy).
- When it was time for a new clothes washer, we bought the most energy-efficient one we could, a front loading model. They use less water, get clothes cleaner, put less wear on the clothes in the process, and leave clothes dryer, leaving less work for the clothes dryer (or the sun in summer).
- When it was time for a new water heater, we spent the extra and got a tankless model with electronic ignition so there's no pilot light and not 30+ gallons of water being kept hot whether any is being used or not.
- I no longer leave my computer on over night. Takes longer to get started in the morning, but boot time is now go pour myself some coffee time
:-)
- We've had a programmable thermostat for the furnace for years. Turns down when you leave for work (before I started working at home), turns up when you get back, with different schedules for weekends versus weekdays. Not only do you use less energy, but the house can be warming up when you wake up in the morning.
In addition to those ideas:- We've had a Toyota Prius since 2001. Simply put, it's the best car my wife or I have ever owned. Great mileage, low emissions, low maintenance, and the newer model is even better. Plus there's a $2000 federal tax break.
- Trip-linking. Plan your errands so you can do a number of short, connected trips instead of heading out every time you need something. Or better, figure out how you can skip the trip altogether
:-)
- Rather than buy an air conditioner for the couple of months a year we'd need one, I installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom.
- We have a couple of cloth bags we use for shopping instead of getting new plastic or paper ones every time we go.
- I'm in the process of replacing the old single-pane windows with dual-pane. This is more expensive and/or difficult than some people can do, but Marvin makes the Tilt-Pac for replacing just the window but leaving the existing frame. They're cheaper than a whole new window, and simple enough to install that people with some home improvement experience can do it themselves.
- I'm also in the process of adding insulation to our house, which was built with exactly none to start with. The attic was easy enough to add insulation to, but insulating existing walls is a bit harder. Blown in loose insulation tends to settle over time, and doesn't fill in small gaps very well. I'm looking at alternatives such as soy-based spray foam insulation.
- I'm in the process of designing, permitting, and hopefully in a couple of months, building a small addition to our house (going from about 1000 sq. ft. to about 1300 sq. ft.). The design incorporates as many green building techniques as possible, including more insulation than required by code, south-facing windows for solar heating in winter, large roof overhang to avoid solar heating in summer, natural lighting via well-placed windows, and a large south-facing roof for the future addition of solar panels. That's in addition to stuff like low/no-VOC paints and bamboo flooring which don't necessarily use less energy, but are better for the environment.
Besides the construction, none of these things is that difficult or expensive compared with their alternatives. And most if not all will save you money in the long run if you're in your house any length of time.Try drip irrigating your lawn.
Use a grass species that uses less water.
Convert to a rock garden.
I got rid of my car, moved closer to work and my kid's school, fix and reuse, recycle more, and spend more of my time now with my family than working harder to be a good consumer.
I'm also now completely out of debt.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Without getting into a huge, offtopic argument about urban vs. rural living, I can state that I (and my 8 million city-dwelling compatriots) use less energy, on average, than rural and suburban folks. We eat out at restaurants instead of cooking meals individually. Almost everything we need is within two minutes' walking distance, so we don't hop into our SUVs for a fifteen minute round trip every time we need groceries. And when we have to travel, we do it by rail and bus.
Physics is on our side, too. In winter, apartments don't bleed heat into the atmosphere the way single-family homes do. In summer, our buildings expose less surface area (ratio) to let in the heat.
I'll grant that someone living in a wood cabin in Montana might use less energy. But who wants to live in Montana?
Then I burn a tankful of gas on weekends driving my minivan to hikes and geocaches.
I sit at my desk all day rather than walking around and being active. I tell you, it saves me a ton of energy...
While we're on the topic of efficient cars, I'd like to mention mine. Not quite as fuel efficient, but about the highest efficiency * performance product available (IMHO). The MX-3 comes with a 1.6 l 4-banger or 1.8 l V6. Early versions of the 4 were SOHC, later are DOHC (Double OverHead Camshaft). I have the little SOHC engine with a stickshift, and get 37-40 mpg on gasoline, and the 94 and later should get even better with DOHC. Depending on location, this may even be less cost/mile than diesel at 46 mpg. (diesel / gasoline price ratio is about 1 here, but varies a lot) This thing is an awesome sports coupe, and hasn't sacrificed any performance (except maximum speed) for that kind of mileage. If you need a sports car, this is a good choice.
Saved $120/month by turning of the jacuzzi-like thing in our backyard. Man that was a hog. The salesman said it was going to be abouyt $25/mon. Liar.
Blew a big wad of money on a 4-zone 2 stage a/c with SEER of 15.0. This replaced an unzoned 1-stage with an SEER that I was guessing to be about 9 when originally installed but probably down to about 5 because of mechanical problems. Unless you're county building codes are strict about a/c efficiency, you probably have the cheapest, least efficient a/c that was available when your house was built.
Newer houses have lots of "can lights" these days. Mine came with 20+ 75W floods sprinkled throughout the house. I replaced 'em all with 18W compact fluourescents. I didn't see a direct effect on the electric bill 'cause I replaced the bulbs gradually, but I'm guessing at about $15 a month in savings from that.
Another killer was a portable 1500W space heater that my wife liked to leave on for several hours a day. I unplugged it one day when she was gone and hid it from her.
All told, my highest electric bills have been just above $300. Last one was $79 and I'm anticipating summer peaks of maybe $130 this year.
Future plans include a new fridge, better insulated windows, a vapor barrier in the attic, and some quality time with a caulking gun.
I am saving energy by using compact flourecent bulbs, turning off things like the t.v. and video rather than them being left in standby. 40c clothes wash, only boiling as much water as I need in the kettle, wearing more layers and turning the heating down. None take much effort. Also, I heard the amount of power saved by recycling an aluminium can, can power a t.v. for 2 hours (bbc news). Prolonging is a very good idea because in a few decades we will almost certainly have efficient fusion reactors, meaning we can get all our electricity without producing greenhouse gases. If we do nothing until then, we could begin a chain of unstoppable events that could wipe out large amounts of peoples, animals, land and countries within a couple of centuries. http://www.fusion.org.uk/ I must add that where I work, there are approx. 200 computers turned on 24/7 all year. For 16 hours of the day only half are being used, yet the rest are still turned on. The managers refuse to turn the boxes off for network reasons, but I insist that the monitors be turned off when not in use. Im trying to use my power as an employee to do this, and shall not rest until the matter is sorted. 100 monitors for 16+ hours is going to save on the electric bill too.
I just found these online: 12 LED fits in bulb socket
Don't put out a lot of light but might be good for some situations.
I bought a universal remote so that I have to get up from the couch even less. And hey, I've cut my battery consumption by 80% as well! :)
....moving back in with your mom.
Actually, as sick as that sounds, sharing a structure with other family members is a good way to save on some costs. For example, if there are 2 families living in 2 (similar) houses, it takes X to heat each home. However, if they both move in together, it still takes roughly X to heat one house. So, if you have a family member/friend/etc that you can stand to live with, you can save some money together on not duplicating services at each home. In this example of heat, each of you now pay about X/2 of the heat bill.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Servants Of The British Empire?
I assume the question is posed to regular folks, but I think big corporations definitely have a role to play in conserving energy. Having worked in corporate America for years, I have one suggestion for them -- scale down orders that require outside van/truck delivery services, and/or create an in-house delivery service composed of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Big corporations order things to be delivered to their front door at the drop of a hat -- the fuel consumption of a delivery van that trucks in a couple of boxes of xerox paper, for instance, is wasteful. Instead, they should start an in-house delivery service composed of hybrid, or any other fuel-efficient, vehicles.
Nothing against the delivery and trucking industries, but if more corporations have their own fleet of fuel-efficient delivery vehicles, more jobs will be created in the computer industry that will help design and manufacture fuel-efficient cars.
Sun and Fun
I pay thousands of dollars in taxes each year supporting a military that is expected to make sure I have an abundance of cheap energy. I'll be damned if I'll pay those taxes AND cut my energy consumption.
If you've had problems with CFLs burning out after less than two years, or with them not starting right away when switched on, or with them being too dim when they are first switched on, then TRY A DIFFERENT CFL.
Unlike incandescent lamps, which are pretty much all the same regardless of manufacturer, CFLs vary widely in their performance. CFLs from the major lighting manufacturers have been proven in independent studies to last at least as long as they claim under standard conditions. (We did those independent tests here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/.)
CFLs from the dollar store work about as well as you'd expect them to. But even different CFLs from the same known company perform differently in terms of start-up delay, warm-up time, color appearance, and whether or not base-up light output differs from base-down.
The best way to buy CFLs for your home is to pick out 3 different ones from companies you've heard of. Try them out side-by-side and observe their performance -- you will see differences, especially in the color. Then go back to the store and buy a bunch more of the one you like best. Put the other two into your porch lights.
Make sure that whichever one you choose, it is at least as small as a regular light bulb, so that it can fit anywhere. If you have any of your light circuits on dimmers, make sure you get CFLs that say they are dimmable. They even make 3-way CFLs.
I have CFLs in every light bulb socket in my home, including the one in the stove hood. Unfortunately, I still have one of those dimmable halogen torchiere floor lamps that uses a 300W halogen bulb, even though there are "fluorescent torchieres" now available that use one-fourth the electricity.
It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'.
It's not fairly clear. In fact, I think the opposite it true, that conservation is the first solution looked to. It's the solution that's been used for the last thirty years.
How many times have you heard your mother say over the years: "Turn off your lights when you're not using them! Do you think electricity comes from a well or something?"
We could conserve more, but a lot of us don't really know where our energy goes. Do you know how much energy your computer consumes? So why don't you turn it off when you're not using it? I see far too many "environmentally concerned" citizens that keep their computers on all the time. At work I turn off my computer on the weekend and people actually look at me as if I'm nuts for doing it. I've got a friend who's in Earth First, and owns an NVidia card with more fan horsepower than my Hoover vacumn! Where's the sense in that?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I walk the 30 minutes to & from the lab. (this gut isn't going to go away by itself...)
I keep the hot water off when I'm taking a shower. (we've only got a 60 gallon heater, and I've got to wake up anyway...)
I turn the heat off in the lab when everyone leaves. (I've got a sweater, gloves, and hat, word to my man, Jimmy Carter!)
I turn the computer off during the day when I'm not there. (It's not like anyone's going to IM me anyway...)
I used to be able to say "I run the washing machine & dryer at night so it doesn't strain the building's grid" but, surprise! Some of the new tenants didn't like that...
[o]_O
It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'.
This is so wrong I'm having a hard time finding where to begin.
For starters, I hardly think that conservation is "overlooked." People know about it. People conserve all the time when conservation results in a net cash savings. Make conservation less expensive, and people will conserve even more. Make it possible to conserve without a reduction in quality of life, or better, an improvement, and people will conserve as much as possible.
Secondly, conservation isn't a solution. I'm not saying we shouldn't conserve. Certainly, we should. But, with the population of the world growing, and the number of people living in poverty (hopefully) shrinking as the rest of the world becomes more inustrialized, energy consumption is going to increase no matter how much conservation you do.
So: conservation is a potential short-term stop-gap to our energy problems, but it's neither long term, nor a solution. The only thing that can be considered a solution is something that produces (collects/converts/etc.. if you want to be pedantic) more and cleaner energy. A problem with this is that many "environmentalists" aren't interested in merely helping the environment. They also want to change people's lifestyles to fit what they see as the proper way to live. They take this so far that they are often willing to reject technology that would reduce polution and energy costs simply because it wouldn't also force people to reduce consumption and change their lifestyle.
Do not make your car drastically more unsafe by removing its ability to accelerate quickly when the need arises. When an out-of-control semi is bearing down on me, I'd rather lose an ounce of gas to my foot on the floorboard than a gallon of blood to my face on his grill.
I call bullshit. I accept that your safety is dependent on your ability to control your position relative to other vehicles. In order to change your relative position, you need relative velocity. In order to change relative velocity, you need acceleration. Okay. Take your car up to 50 miles per hour. Accelerate at your maximum possible rate for 5 seconds. Repeat the test, but decelerate at your maximum possible rate for five seconds. Which affected your velocity more? The one that affected your velocity more is the one that gives you more control, and thus more safety. In nearly every conceivable circumstance, you will find that adjusting your velocity by means of the steering wheel and the brake will take you out of danger much faster than the accelerator.
- My wife and I work close together so we carpool. For times we can't/don't carpool, I drive my motorcycle (50+ miles to the gallon, thank you).
- I cut down to one desktop and two laptops at home. I run pretty much everything on surge protectors and I turn them off when things aren't in use. We also use less heat this year than we did last year by keeping the house more humid (look into getting a vaporizer if you're in a fairly dry climate).
We've managed to halve our electric bill this month (first month in our new house) and hopefully the bill will stay steady. When we actually build our house it will be concrete with really good insulation so we won't be prey to the temperature extremes here in Texas.I am converting to a VMWARE infrastructure, makeing as many machines as I can virtual.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Walk or ride your bike to work. Not only will you save energy, you will gain energy as you get in better shape. And it's fun. And bicyclists are more fun to watch than drivers.
Around the house ->
- Compact Flourescent where I can
- Power bars on everything. When not in use I turn the bar off. TVs, monitors even when off draw power.
- Timer on the fish tank lights.
- Constant yelling at the kids to turn off the lights.
Driving ->
- Taking the bus most of the time.
- When driving we know where we are going rather than aimless driving.
We now only fill up the car every 2 weeks rather than twice weekly. Hydro bill has dropped about $30/bill.
Panic now, beat the rush!
In nearly every conceivable circumstance, you will find that adjusting your velocity by means of the steering wheel and the brake will take you out of danger much faster than the accelerator.
...we can all agree on the facts: there are many, many instances where increasing your forward velocity rapidly is the only safe course of action. The most common is the case where you find yourself merging onto a busy highway from an on-ramp or other start-from-a-standstill position. You need to be ably to quickly match your speed to that of the empty spot you're driving next to. If you can't, you'll probably find yourself choosing between 1) driving past the end of the merge lane in a frantic attempt to accelerate, or 2) slamming on your brakes when you realize it isn't going to happen.
Gentle acceleration and slow stops are worthy ideals to shoot for, but if you think that crippling a car's ability to interact with its environment is a good idea, then you need to get out of the Traffic Theory classroom and onto the road. Just don't do it near where I live, OK?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
collect all the obese ppl, get them to eat a lot of beans non-stop and then tell them to fart as hard as they can ... get the airflow to some windmills and generate electricity... hey isnt that how the cellfone charger works!!
Sometimes you can conserve energy with an absolutely negligible impact on your lifestyle simply by making sure your stuff works the way it is designed to:
:)
1 - Get your furnace/heat pump maintained! For gas furnaces, they need to burn efficiently. Corrosion can block heat transfer causing less heat to go into your house and more to vent outside with the fumes. Heat pumps low on refrigerant run much more than needed. Save energy. Save money.
2 - Get your car tuned. Is it missing? That's unburned fuel going out the exhaust. Save energy. Save money.
3 - Insulate your hot water pipes. Are you dumping the heat from your hot water into your crawlspace? Insulating the pipes will cut your costs, save energy and may even let you turn down the thermostat on your hot water heater since you won't be losing water temperature en route from the heater to your tub (more energy saved, more money saved).
4 - Dishwasher? READ THE MANUAL! It may have lower energy modes that will cut the grease just fine while using less energy. Mine also suggests running water at the sink until the water runs hot before you start the dishwasher. If the water is cold when it reaches the dishwasher, the dishwasher has to heat it up. It's much less efficient than a hot water heater, so it consumes a lot more energy that way.
5 - How hot is your hot water? You want it hot enough to meet your needs (i.e.: when mixed with cold water you should be able to take a shower of a duration of your choice). If it is hotter than needed, you are just wasting energy: heat transfers at a rate proportional to the difference between the hot spot and the cold spot. In this case that means the inside of your hot water heater and the outside. Don't make that difference more than you need.
6 - Wash full loads of clothes. A full washer is more efficient than one half-full. On the other hand don't overstuff your dryer. A stuffed dryer can't do it's job because air can't penetrate the mass of clothing. Two smaller loads in the dryer (up to a point) are better than one overstuffed load. For that matter, don't let clothes get smelly, but don't overwash them either. If they aren't dirty you're just wearing them out.
7 - How old is your fridge? If it's old, think about a new one. Efficiencies have gone up quite a bit in the past two decades.
8 - How old is your weatherstripping? Is it cracked, smashed, or missing? A little extra insulation in the attic helps as well.
9 - Cook bigger meals and then save the leftovers. Cook once -- eat twice to cut the use of the oven.
10 - Check your water meter. If everything is turned off in your house, but the meter is moving you have a leak. Leaks waste water and money and might be slowing rotting something away that will cost big buck later.
11 - Adjust your toliets to use a tad less water. Most toliets use an adjustable float to determine when they are full. Adjust it! On older models this is as simple as adding a slight bend to the rod that runs to the float. If a toliet is leaking you need to repair it (kits are cheap) or replace it with a newer, more efficient toliet.
None of these things make you change your lifestyle in any appreciable way (though cooking with the intention of having leftovers WILL give you more free time).
Life is short: void the warranty.
I really like the new construction system called structural insulated panals, or sips. They consist of a 4 to 8 inch thick layer of polystyrene or polyurethane foam sandwiched between two layers of oriented strand board. They go together in a tongue and groove fashion and the seams are injected with foam and taped. They can be strctural and non-structural, and are amazeingly strong. They can be used for floors, wall, and roofs. You end up with a nearly perfectly airtight house with a perfectly uniform R-value of 30 to 40. Obviously this greatly reduces the energy needed to heat and cool a house. Combine this with reversible geothermal heatpumps and TOTAL ANUAL heating and cooling costs in states like Wisconsin are less than 200 dollars for a large home. Plus the use of OSB allows the use of samll, fast growing trees and scrap wood. And sure the foam is oil based but over the the life span of the home it actually saves and enormous amount of oil from heating saveings.
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
I find I get the best out of all worlds - I ride a motorcycle to work - it is cheap fast and fun. It uses less resources and fuel than a hybrid car, is less smelly and inconvenient than a bus. Best of all is getting to work with a smile on my face!
I think one of the best way to conserve energy would be to generate it with different means as well as using it less, therefore more energy to go round to a shrinking market so there will be lots of excess energy; other raw materials can be saved instead of used.
I have a 2 different torches, neither need a battery and neither will need a battery. One is powered by shaking it for a few minutes which charges some electromagnetic coils (like in Science at school) which powers the torch for 10 or so minutes. The other torch is a better; for about 10 seconds of squeesing this weird thingy sticking out the side (i love technical language) if gives the torch about 10 or 15 minutes of power.
I think there should be other ways that people could do during their everyday lives that generate power. Instead of walking or jogging to keep fit, someone should invent some kind of huge hamster wheel that generates electricity - you keep fit AND generate electricity. Although storing a huge hanster wheel somewhere would be hard.
I remember reading on hackaday a few weeks ago about a Gurrilla Solar (PDF) device.
I ride my bike to work. Conserves energy and cuts down on pollution. Increases health and fitness levels. Increases *mental* health levels by far.
Really getting on my bike and riding is among the best things I've done in my adult life.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
What a good thread! I've been astounded at the lack of creative thinking about saving energy here in the United States. Everyone always sounds the hyperbolic argument that environmentalists just want to bring us back to the stone age and then go one wasting all of our resources.
What's needed is a compromise. I know that not everyone is willing to move to within 5 miles of their work and bicycle to their job. I know not everyone will pack their own lunch and reuse the tupperware. I know that not everyone will turn the thermostat down to 60 deg F in the winter. But if just 10% of us did, imagine! And for those of us that do - we save literally $1000's/year. I estimate that I'm saving about $4000/year by not owning a car. I've got a bike trailer and haul around groceries and even lumber for house projects. I'm stronger and more fit and I can park just about anywhere.
Other brain dead things, are to check your driving directions and leave more time for yourself to get to your destination. I've wasted so much time, gas and nerves trying to get somewhere in a hurry. And when you don't know how to get there, what a huge waste. That's what map.yahoo.com can do for you.
Or plan, so that you only have to make one trip to the store/downtown/mall instead of two or three. I can't believe the amount of time people in the burbs spend driving to the 'convenience' store only to go back 2 hours later.
A lot of times conservation is simply common sense. Its about being efficient and smart not just altruistic.
In the winter, does it save energy to turn off lights when not in use?
If I know my physics, theoretically the answer is no. All the electrical energy used by a light bulb either is converted to heat inside the bulb (which you need anyway, because it's winter) or light, which immediately strikes something in the room and is converted to heat.
Whatever heat is produced stays inside the house, and just means your heater runs that much less. The amount of energy saved in your heater should be almost exactly equal to that consumed by your light bulb. Assuming your heater is electric, it would seem that you don't save any energy by turning the light off (unless the light is near a window and some light escapes the house, but I imagine this is a negligible energy loss).
When I was in high school, my parents nagged me constantly about the lights being on. I tried to give them the above argument, but they just weren't buying it.
Can anyone help validate (or invalidate) my argument?
The waste from nuclear energy is so dirty that various state governors have attempted to block it from being shipped through their states. I wonder if you have ever stopped to consider the extraordinary amount of energy it takes to mine and refine uranium. I doubt it.
Tankless heaters aren't always more efficient.
If you've got a tanked heater inside your home, then it isn't losing heat to the outside environment. If you've got it on a south facing side, it can absorb heat from the sun too.
So it isn't always the right solution. You can probably reduce your energy costs for your tankless if you get a tank, paint it black, place it in a solar closet, and have that feed your 'cold' water line.
GPL Deconstructed
No, those governers have done what they've done because the residents of those states have irrational fears of nuclear waste. It is certainly a "dirty" material but it can be transported safely. Truck it down my street, if you like.
I wonder if you have ever stopped to consider the extraordinary amount of energy it takes to mine and refine uranium. I doubt it.
The amount of energy extracted from that refined uranium during the nuclear reactions absolutely dwarfs the energy required to refine it. In fact, it is quite possible to power a uranium refining facility with a nuclear generator.
So for now I'll enjoy my heavily modified 405RWHP Z28 that gets about 10-12MPG.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
i just did a 180 mile round trip to the ski resort wednesday and did a little experiment. i drove 62 mph the entire way (plus or minus, usually minus going uphill). my `84 Volvo wagon got an astounding 28 mpg! normally I get about 21 mpg, but normally i'm driving at least 75. i never accelerate hard at all, to conserve fuel.
the extra 13 mph would've saved me ~20 minutes. instead i saved over two gallons of gas (180/28=6.4 180/21=8.5).
you get diminishing returns for speeding. you have to travel twice as fast to get half the time. there's a very significant exponential decay in terms of time savings.
i think i'm going to slow down a little. i'm wondering how different the situation is for cars with good engines.
Myren
There's a couple major problems with fluorescents, a lot of which have been pointed out. But I havent seen my #1 beef:
1) Its impossible to find dimmable fluorescents.
They used to make em, a reasonable premium, but they're completely AWOL now.
Other grievances:
2) 60 hz DEATH TO EYES magical powers
3) hideous spectrum: what is it, like 3 different narrowband peaks?
Can someone recommend a dimmable full spectrum non-flickering fluorescent? cause that'd f'ing rock.
-Myren
"No, those governers have done what they've done because the residents of those states have irrational fears of nuclear waste. It is certainly a "dirty" material but it can be transported safely. Truck it down my street, if you like."
It can be safetly trucked down your street exactly because of that irrational fear. Otherwise "lowest cost" would have taken effect.
My company decided the best way to save money was apparently to turn off all of the photocopy machines. Now, it takes 15 min to make a copy. Meanwhile, one of the executives has his own full size refrigerator in his office. Go figure.
12-volt DC ONLY!
... New Energy Saving Efficient Products & Appliances, ... Mini DC Refrigerator: Low energy ... Outdoor Wall Lantern- 12 volt DC. ...
... solar charger can charge other 12 volt powered devices ... cellular phone with a DC charging ... Instant Outdoor Tree Decorating; Energy Saving LED Lighting Unit; ...
... - [ Traduire cette page ] ...
... - [ Traduire cette page ] ... We have 12 V, 24 V and 48 volts DC Ballasts: Energy efficient, long life, solid ... 24 volt models are also available. ...
... - [ Traduire cette page ] ... The Energy Saving Lamp is a 12 V compact fluorescent bulb with a light output ... Voltage 12 Volts DC. ...
... Features/Benefits Energy-saving, Clog-proof - Dirty water DC Valves. ... with any 9 to ... to Aquanet wire run lengths: -12 gauge = 3,150' -14 ...
... power outages or areas where AC power is unavailable. Price Qty Order US ...
... Both types are suitable for use in a wide range of applications: Solar & Wind Energy ... 12 or 24 volt DC models. Low Current Consumption. ...
You might know that DC is "more efficient" on short range power transmission than AC...
You might also have heard that people having solar panel mostly use low-energy appliances, which happen to run @ 12V DC...
here is what I find when googling "12V DC energy savings"
CET: New Energy Saving Efficient Products & Appliances - [ Traduire cette page ]
consumption; 1.8 cubic feet interior volume;
http://www.cetsolar.com/newprod.htm - 31k - 2 mar 2005 - En cache - Pages similaires
CET: The Largest Alternative Energy Dealer in the Northeast - [ Traduire cette page ]
cord
http://www.cetsolar.com/ - 37k - 2 mar 2005 - En cache - Pages similaires
[ Autres résultats, domaine www.cetsolar.com ]
Our best 12 Volt DC Compact Fluorescent Bulb Uses 80% less energy
12 Volt DC 11 Watt Compact Fluorescent Bulb This is the best in compact fluorescent
DC lighting. The Solsum Energy Saving Lamp has the light output equal to a
http://store.sundancesolar.com/12voldc11wat.html - 23k - En cache - Pages similaires
Ballast 12 Volts and 24 Volts DC Electronic ballast, energy saving
state electronic 12 VDC ballast, for
http://www.oksolar.com/lighting/ballast/ - 39k - En cache - Pages similaires
Light bulbs 12 Volts and 24 Volts DC, Compact Fluorescent Light
equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent bulb.
http://www.oksolar.com/lighting/light_bulbs.htm - 99k - En cache - Pages similaires
[ Autres résultats, domaine www.oksolar.com ]
12 Volt Aquanet Sprinkler Valves - [ Traduire cette page ]
14 Volt DC Pulse Signal
http://www.mrdrip.com/12voltvalves.htm - 94k - En cache - Pages similaires
Energy Efficient Lighting - Diversified Power & Engineering - [ Traduire cette page ]
$19.95. More Details Energy Saving 110 Volt AC US $8.95,
http://divpower.com/sub-category.asp?CatalogVar=0& cID=1 - 44k - En cache - Pages similaires
Low Voltage Lights - 12 or 24v dc - [ Traduire cette page ]
Systems. Boats.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I replaced all my standard light blubs toj sp?co e=0&oidPath=0%3a-23542%3a-38373%3a-38411%3a-38429% 3a-38512%3a841473&mt=a&n=0&BV_SessionID=_SC_142033 1873.1109977034_CS_&BV_EngineID=cccgadddmlhfdhdcfk fcfkjdgoodfkf.0i n_shopping.jsp?co e=0&oidPath=0%3a-23542%3a-38373%3a-38411%3a-38429% 3a-38512%3a841474&mt=a&n=0&BV_SessionID=_SC_142033 1873.1109977034_CS_&BV_EngineID=cccgadddmlhfdhdcfk fcfkjdgoodfkf.0
GE Compact Fluorescent Spiral - 26 Watt - 10 pk. & GE Compact Fluorescent Spiral - 13 Watt - 10 pk.
http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_shopping.
http://www.samsclub.com/eclub/ma
One day, I'm going to climb into the attic and check insulation. I may even put up weather stripping on my windows.
* Replace all of your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent. Use the lowest wattage that you are comfortable with, reserving higher wattage for task lighting where you need the most clear illumination. This alone can cut your energy costs for lighting anywhere from 66%-75%.
* Wrap your hot water pipes and heat vents with insulation.
* Spray expansive foam insulation into your exterior facing walls.
* Replace any appliances that heat with electricity. Natural gas is the most practical replacement.
* Consider a passive solar water pre-heater so that warm/hot water goes in to your main water heater.
* Switch your car. Skip the hypebrids... I mean hybrids... and go straight to a good turbodiesel. Volkswagen has done wonders with their TDI. Add a chip and you can get great performance and still do better than 40MPG. Volkswagen TDI is known to run well on 100% biodiesel, also, if you ever consider going that route.
* Hang heavy curtains over your windows. Keep the curtains closed at night.
* Consider putting a small awning over your windows to block the summer sun from coming in directly, but inviting the winter sun which sits lower in the sky.
* Don't let your dishwasher dry the dishes. Dry them by hand.
* Hang your clothes on a clothesline to dry them whenever possible.
* If you live in an arid region, consider using a swamp cooler to augment or replace your air conditioning.
* If you live on a nice chunk of land, consider augmenting your heat and hot water with a wood burning furnace. This is impractical if you have to buy wood. But a godsend if you live on a managed woodlot.
* Replace all CRT monitors and televisions in your home with LCD's.
* Get yourself a "killawatt" device which will allow you to measure the actual energy consumption of everything you have that plugs into a standard 110VAC outlet and determine what appliances you need to replace with more efficient ones.
* Subscribe to Home Power and Countryside magazines to stay plugged into what other people are doing.
really..
she's outta town, and I have the thermostat at 67
she likes 75, but ALLOWS as 72 is more reasonable
that 5 degree temp keeps me awake, and really helps.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Seriously, for most people this is overkill, but I had to start with a clean slate anyway. My old house, a 2 story 1,200 square foot bungalow was built on a shoestring immediately after WW2, mostly by my grandparents. Insulation wasn't much of a priority, about 2 inches in the attic, and nothing in the 4 inch walls. In the coldest months of the year, it used about 170 gallons of oil a month to keep it at a toasty 65 degrees. When oil was 80 cents a gallon, this wasn't too bad to take, especially coming from an electrically heated townhouse. At $1.75 a gallon, the cost of oil and electricity topped $400 a month last winter. The house set on part of the old family farm, which was sold. We kept a building lot though, and I got a chance to build a new house on it.
The new house sits on a piece of ground within sight of the old house and is even more exposed to the weather, (but the view is worth it). The new house is a single story house, about 1500 square feet (20 percent larger). Because of its sunbaked and windblown location, it was imperative to build in energy efficiency. Within my budget, I speced the house to be as energy efficient as possible, and as a result, the new house costs half as much to heat and cool as the old house, even though it is larger.
Here are some improvements I specified:
Insulation:
6 inch walls with R-19 Fiberglass insulation
10 inches in the attic, up to the tops of the joists, underneath OSB decking (the attic is currently used for storage)
4 foot wide R6 reflective blanket insulation around the inside foundation perimeter (a new code requirement around here) Keeps the basement at 55-60 degrees without additional heat, except for leakage and radiation from the HVAC ductwork.
There is some room for improvement, I might add R-19 insulation to the basement ceiling joists once I finish running additional electrial outlets downstairs. Upstairs is mostly heavy carpet, I am not sure if this is worthwhile or not.
Windows are Energy Star rated, with argon filled double panes of low-E glass.
Entire house is wrapped in Tyvek house wrap to reduce air infiltration. I also went with modular construction, rather than stick building.
HVAC:
I went with a high-efficiency heat pump with a propane backup. I seriously looked at doing a Geothermal heat pump, but the relatively long payback at then-current energy prices and a tightening construction budget prompted me to back off on this. I have been having second thoughts ever since, especially with deregulation of residential electric rates looming around here.
Other things I need to do:
Though I got a start last year, I need to add some additional landscaping. In particular, I need to plant some evergreens on the northwest side of the house to buffer it from the wintry blasts it currently gets. I have to carefully balance the buffering effects of landscaping against blocking my best view of the surrounding countryside though. I also need to plant some additional shade trees on the southeast side, to help keep it cool in summer. It will be a decade before the trees do much good, but the sooner I get started, the sooner they will help. Last year was the year of the cicada, and they attacked the Maples I did plant. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it survived the winter.
Take the One Tonne Challenge.
I grew up in a 12vdc house, and I recommend 24vdc. Same efficiency advantages, but provides a little more power for important things like having adequate light to read by.
Anyway, living in a DC house is like running Linux, in that it takes a bit more shopping effort to get devices that will work for you. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone who wasn't going to take the extra step (and expense) of generating at least some of their own power. A phase matching inverter, some deep cycle batteries, and the power generation technology of your choice (solar's most popular, but wind and microhydro might also be interesting tech to check out, depending on your situation) and in the long run you can see some significant savings, while not only enjoying all the advantages of being on-grid, but also effectively having a whole-house UPS.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I definitely prefer middle eastern oil to domestic coal. As far as I can see it is better to give the fanatics funds, than destroy our planet
This is, quite honestly, the most retarded thing I have ever read. DC does offer some minor power savings -- if you are transmitting megawatts of power over megavolt transmission lines. It does not save anything for normal 120V wiring. In fact, it's a lot less efficient.
AC transformers are nearly 95% efficient. A 12V DC-DC converter will, at best, be around 70% efficient. They simply don't make MOSFETs with low enough on-resistance to be efficient at low voltages. If you power your whole house with 12VDC, you will end up with ridiculous currents and you will have huge resistive losses in almost anything. Remember: Power = Voltage * Current = Current^2 * resistance.
Surprised that I didn't notice that anyone has mentioned what always seemed the most obvious to a computer geek like myself: Replace your bulky, inefficient CRT monitor with an LCD one.
LCDs use a fraction of the power of CRTs, take up far less space, are easier to read and just look much cooler. As cheap as they are now, there is really no good reason to buy a CRT monitor for a regular desktop machine.
However, I'm still waiting for this 19" behemoth CRT to hurry up and die since the above argument alone failed miserably on my wife...
"Save Gas. Fart in a jar."
I don't :)
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Just check out the Cape Wind project- A series of windmills which could theoretically supply 1/3 of Cape Cod's electricity in the summer months. Even though the windmills are beautiful, and even though they would be a couple miles out to sea, there is a huge crowd of (mostly) wealthy people, including a disturbingly large contingent of "Massachusetts Liberals", who're fighting it on "enviornmental grounds" wich mostly incldue "blockin' my million dollar cottage view grounds".
I started around the time when gas hit a dollar a gallon. The first time. Nice of y'all to finally join me. {smile}
I've always considered 30mi/gal a minimum fuel efficiency for a car, and 40mi/gal is what I drive now (1999 Chevy Metro; a new hybrid's out of my price range).
But I don't drive it much. Just to the grocery store and laundromat, and to a once-a-month meeting out of town. To get to work or go to the movies and for most simple errands, I ride my bike or I take the bus if it's cold and/or wet. Pizza/beer/sub/hotdog/burrito/video/cash runs and coffee-house/bar visits are all done on foot; I chose to live in a mixed-use neighborhood where I can do that. (There's a gas station nearby as well, but I kinda need to drive the car to use it.)
A simple low-tech way to reduce my water-heating costs was to dial the furnace down to showering temperature. It takes less energy to maintain that temperature, and I don't have to add cold water to my shower to then bring the temp back down. (The dishwasher heats itself, so the plates still get a good scalding.)
Plus there's the compact fluoros and LCDs wherever shiny things are needed, socks and sweats instead of 70+F heating, and all the other usual energy-conservation tips.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The best way would be to choose whatever measure makes you most happy.
/.-ers, so save your finger energy. ;) (if you don't know how to cook without meat pls collect some nice recipes, average-american-food-with-meat-left-out is horrible).
And keep things in perspective. For example, if you moved into town to be closer to work and save gasoline, but you hate to live in town and have to take more holidays in Hawaii.... well there goes your fuel saving.
Then, there are some tools that can help you to choose which step is the most efficient for you; i like the 'ecological footprint'. It calculates the imaginary footprint you have on the world, by all your energy use, food use, etc. Of course the method is a bit weird, comparing energy use with food, clothes etc and converting that to hectares (or acres). So just use it as a guide.
What amazed me was that eating vegetarian made a big difference. Since i don't mind eating less meat, that was an easy thing to do. Yes, I know, this may vary with other
There is a popular biologist here who jokingly claims he can do whatever he likes to the environment because he did not take any children. He says, imagine how many diapers etc I saved...
And since i also DON'T like children... hehehe...
BTW I spoke to a Scottish transport expert and he told me not to worry about the worlds' oil use. He says oil will soon become so expensive that people will save on oil use anyway.
replace incandescent bulbs with CFs. Its the biggest-easiest win.
My wife likes our old quaint crappy windows, so I've installed Smith&Noble insulated shades, which I keep closed on the north side of the house as much as possible, and keep open on the south side from 8:30 - 4 p.m., which really helps keep the furnace off on sunny days.
I telecommute two days a week and carpool 48 of my 60 mile roundtrip to work the other three days. On the way home from carpooling I do the shopping to keep my wife from having to make the 12 mile roundtrip to town.
For our farm-stuff and lumber-store trips we've got a big diesel pickup we run on biodiesel made with good old Virginia soybeans. Its a bit of a PITA but makes having 1.3 vehicles per person livable.
- Lights of America: SUCK. They make a very pretty-looking 3-way circular-tube light, but when the tube goes bad the electronic ballast literally destroys itself trying to re-start it. I have literally four of them waiting for me to be able to find or make replacement shunt resistors; I have to watch the survivors carefully to make sure the tubes are replaced before they croak.
- Feit Electric: SUCK. Three folded-tube integral-ballast units died in about a year in my bathroom.
There have been some good points:- GE: GREAT. I have not had a single GE CF die on me yet.
- I have some no-name Chinese brand in the bathroom now (no brand name on the bulbs themselves, I just checked). They've been there most of a year; so far, so good.
How much life you get depends on the quality. I'd look for GE and stay away from LoA and Feit, and be careful about no-name brands.Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Engine braking is going to save your brake pads and keep you from having brake fade due to overheating on long downgrades, of course. This hasn't been a factor for me in the last ten years; all of my cars have had either front or 4-wheel discs with good cooling, and unless I'm on a twisty 2-lane road I just put the car in neutral and let 'er rip. It's not often that you get a free roller-coaster ride!
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
My car burns quite a bit less fuel going downhill in neutral than in gear (like, less than 1/3 as much according to the trip computer), but that is on hills which are not steep enough to need engine braking. If the hill is just steep enough to coast, you are better off cutting the engine speed to idle (cutting engine drag) and letting gravity do the work.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
And any CF that is dimmable will NOT have a magnetic ballast and will NOT flicker at 60 Hz. The electronic ballasts will switch at tens of kHz and will not have flicker you can detect without a chopper wheel or other equipment. Spectrum is another matter, but your eyes adjust to red light of sunset vs. blue light of the sky; what's the big deal? It won't give you eyestrain.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The 10-year old car I sold last year had 168,000 miles on it and still had excellent compression. It regularly went 5,000 miles between oil changes without needing to add oil.
Semi trucks have drum brakes. Bullshit. Double bullshit for ventilated or cross-drilled discs (there is no such thing as a drum brake with cooling passages through the drum). A quick search for "disc drum brake cooling" brings up "The major advantage of disc brakes over drum brakes is thatTime is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I have a couple in my house. The best way to deal with the annoying spectral effect is to either incase them in opaque glass, or in a lamp stand. This way the material aournd the bulb will smooth out the flicker.
However they do produce an annoying sound, for which I have no solution but to ignore them.
But that's not the most politically correct answer, is it?
One needs to look at not just absolute energy consumption but the growth in energy consumption over the last 5 years. It's a difficult problem.
..don't panic
A fact that is glazed over by advocates of commerical ethanol production from Corn. If you don't have modern fertilizers - which come from petroleum - then your yeilds drop.
I haven't seen a good analysis of the whole corn / ethanol situation that assumed an organic fertilizing scheme that would scale to even 5% of the USA's petroleum consumption figures.
The answer nobody wants to hear is there is plenty of coal for the next hundred years, and there's nuclear as well. Unless you actually looked at how much energy is consumed in the USA on a daily basis, you don't understand how bad the problem is.
..don't panic
Why are they geeky? Are they new in the US?
I don't think they are geeky. Then again I've been using them for years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Actually going off grid is getting to be more and more popular. If'en, if and when I build my own home that's what I plan on doing, going off grid.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's because our eyes are evolved to be most responsive to the yellow light of the sun, which incandescent bulbs emulate a little better.
I can't say if this is true in general but in my case lower temperature lights, tending towards "cool" blue or around 7000K if I recall right are more agreeable to my eyes whereas "warmer" or redish lighting tends to hurt them. I much prefer the cooler lighting.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In photgraphy, film at least, colors don't quite look right under incandescent lighting without taking extra steps. Well, under both really, incandscent lighting makes the photo yellowish whereas florescent lighting makes photos greenish.
FalconShould there be a Law?
To turn plants into something useable as fuel, however? It takes a few hours to a few months, depending on what you want.
Rudolph Diesel designed his Diesel engine to run on a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils. One good source was hemp. Henry Ford himself built a vehicle on his Iron Mountain estate that not only was built using hemp but was also fueled by hemp, hemp he grew on his estate.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In fact, who solve the electricity storage problem will get rich inmediately. Nowdays, there's no good alternative, as you can see at http://www.electricitystorage.org/
For transportation I ise a byke-train combo for long distances. I save energy (after boats, trains are the cheapest transports) and get fit at once!
Unless you have looked at how it is consumed, you don't understand where the points of leverage are. I've spent some time analyzing this; click on the blog link.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
And the president. And this president is doing a good job at it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Huh. Over here in sunny Florida, the fucktards in traffic manage to ruin life for everyone, pedestrian, cyclist or motorist.
I know what you mean, when I lived in Orlando I rode my bike 200+ miles a week until my last accident. Yes, last, as in that last year I had three accidents. While I was in a coma the docs told my family it'd be a miracle if I lived. NOT!!! Come to find out the person who hit me had a warrant out for his arrest in Mass where he had a record of causing accidents.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If electromagnetic fields are a health risk, we're in big trouble. The Earth has one. A big one.
We'd be in even bigger trouble if it stopped.
Anybody got Unobtainium?
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have already done much of what others have suggested here, so looking at alternatives.
I have been thinking about putting in a geo-thermal heat pump. Very efficient. right now, I have a natural gas furnace which was awesome in price; until they finished the pipeline from colorado to california about 2 years ago. Then the price rose. With the heat pump, I can run it as furnace/AC year around and still pay less than 50 / month for energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Don't be so passive. Bring your own bag - either an old large paper bag (some stores will give you a credit for doing so) or [better] a canvas bag which can be reused almost endlessly.
As to the other things, all of which will both cost less and improve your lifestyle:
Replace all incadescent lights with the new fluorescents (those twisty looking ones) -- they use about 1/3 of the power, but give off 90% of the light.
Make sure your computer monitor is EnergyStar compliant.
Insulate your house, so you use less energy heating it.
Don't watch TV. Read a book instead.
Raise your own food; thus, you will drive to the store less often (as well as getting more exercise).
Get a smaller and/or more energy efficient refrigerator.
Turn off lights and appliances which are not being used.
Set your thermostat lower, and wear sweaters to compensate.
These are all common sense ideas that *I* personally have used. I've saved 30% on my various utility bills.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
I notice that he claimed to have worked for Porsche, but he did not mention that Porsche won a number of races right after introducing disc brakes because... their brakes cooled much better and left them more braking power, allowing the drivers to pass other cars while diving into curves before having to slow down themselves.
Finally, your statement "you have been driving a car and not a semi" is irrelevant. Drum brakes on cars have been known to overheat and fade during mountain descents. This problem is known to be much smaller with disc brakes, which have cooling air flowing directly over their braking surfaces (as well as through any internal cooling passages). You can't do that with a drum, period. Your statement "Drum brakes cool better than disc brakes" is simply WRONG.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.