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."

Comments

Re:Almost nothing

[Just Some Guy]

Is it so inconceivable that some people want to save energy regardless of how much it costs to do so?

Sure. Did it occur to you that some people go about it in really stupid ways that cause more problems than they solve? For example, you just trashed the environment to get your photovoltaics so that you could feel good about self-powering your computer. Your pollution-per-watt is much, much higher than the equivalent coming out of your wall.

I want to live on a nice planet, too, but realistically speaking that means centralizing production to a few good, clean resources (read: nuke) than building hundreds of millions of dirty plants across the country. Short-term "solutions" that make us feel proud of ourselves without actually helping the overall situation are wasteful and not something to aspire to.

If you're trying to live off the grid to see if you can or as a personal challenge: good for you, and I wish you the best of luck! If you're trying to do it because you think it's making the world a cleaner place, then you've wasted your time, money, and our natural resources.