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

CFLBs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:CFLBs

[Muad'Dave]

I beg to differ on the lifespan part - I've had 5+ CF bulbs die within a year or two. I think their _theoretical_ lifespan is long, but in practice they're cheaply made and croak early.

Re:CFLBs

[FroMan]

We just recently built a house and looked into energy saving ideas. Going with CF bulbs was a good idea for energy savings, but there are some drawbacks.

First, and most obvious, is cost. To outfit our house with all CF was nearly $350. While in the long run they should save quite a bit, they still are expensive compared to incandecents.

Another drawback is that they do not fit in all fixtures. We broke a couple bulbs by trying to get them into smaller fixtures. Also, the swirly bulbs look terrible in track lights and uncovered can lights. You can find some that have a second shaped bulb around them though that look like regular bulbs.

There also is a bit of a delay to lighting up, but this is only a minor annoyance (~1/2 second). Also, most bulbs do not give out full light until about 1-5 minutese after they are turned on. This is fine in the bathroom in the morning since it gives your eyes a couple minutes. However when you want good light right away CF lights do not cut it.

All that said, I do prefer the idea of savings associated with the CF lights and the problems are mostly annoyances...

Re:CFLBs

[N3Bruce]

It is actually worth replacing the incadescents before they wear out. Assuming that for ease of calculation, a 100 watt incadescent bulb lasts 1000 hours, and electricity is $0.10/KWH. Over the life of the bulb, the incadescent bulb will use 100 KWH of electricity. At the going rate of 10 cents/kwh, which is actually on the low end of the scale in the northeast, the bulb will burn $10.00 worth of electricity during its life. A CFLB with the light output of a 100 watt bulb burns 25 watts, and can be purchased in multi-packs at Home Depot for about $3.00 each, or even less. I have brought 60 watt equivalents for 6 for $10.00.

If you junk an incadescent 100 watt bulb that is worth a buck when it is new halfway through its lifetime, you will forgo $0.50 worth of bulb life. In the 500 hours it would have burned, it would have used $5 worth of electricity, for a net cost of $4.50.

Replacing it with a $3 CFLB will use $1.25 worth of electricity during that 500 hours, assuming an equivalent CFLB uses 25 watts. Even if the CFLB lasts only 500 hours, you are no worse off than waiting for the incadescent bulb to burn out. Chances are, your CFLB will last several times as long as a regular bulb, so the cost of the bulbs themselves per hour of use is down into the same range as incadescents, and the cost of electricity is 75 percent less.

In warm weather, replacing incadescents with CFLBs provides an added bonus: CFLBs use not only use 75 percent less energy than incadescents, they also give off 75 percent less heat. This will reduce your air conditioning load, saving even more money!

The only time it might not make sense is if you are heating your home with straight electricity, in which case it does not really matter if you burn the lights, as resistance heating is resistance heating.

Conserving electricity

[PhiznTRG]

I have all my electronic equipment on five minute timers to conserve electri.....

[no carrier]

Simple, cause blackouts

[Ailure]

Sure people will be annoyed, but bigger and more the blackouts are, the more power everyone will save. Right?

Re:Simple, cause blackouts

[ddewey]

Unfortunately that is the solution the government here in Hangzhou, China uses. During summer 2004 when the temperature was over 100 every day and everyone was using air conditioners, many factories and residences had their power cut off three or four days a week. Most of the larger factories I work with have generators, but when all the factories here have their generators running it makes the air pollution even worse than normal.

Things might be even worse this coming summer due to El Niño. Perhaps what the Chinese government should do is raise energy prices just like the rest of the world is doing, according to supply and demand. But so far their strategy is mostly forced electricity usage limits instead of price-induced ones.

Wear warmer clothing

[chris_mahan]

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)

I conserve energy...

[LordEd]

...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.

Ten simple tips

[elid]

available here

I've cut down

[Anonymous Coward]

On Slashdot. Now I only reload every other second.

Almost nothing

[Just Some Guy]

moving closer to work to cut my commute

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.

Re:Almost nothing

[pclminion]

Unless you're significantly shortening that drive, the upfront costs of relocation will burn through years' worth of fuel savings.

Is it so inconceivable that some people want to save energy regardless of how much it costs to do so? I actually pay a higher rate on my electric bill for "green" energy -- yes, I'm aware that I'm not actually purchasing "green electrons" but that money is directed to sustaining and developing renewable energy resources in the state.

I just bought 500 watts of photovoltaics, which, given a sufficiently large battery bank, will enable me to run my Mac Mini and the LCD it is connected to entirely off-grid. Did I do that to save money? Obviously not.

But I guess putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to the environment gets you labeled either insane or stupid, at least in the USA.

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.

Re:Almost nothing

[pclminion]

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.

Utterly wrong. Check your facts, which are about 15 years out of date. Energy payback time for photovoltaics is under two years these days. And I buy PV cells which are manufactured out of reprocessed semiconductor waste from the chip-making industry. The majority of the environmental impact from producing those semiconductors already happened, when they were refined in order to make Pentiums (or whatever else they turned into).

You're straining to find excuses for being an energy slob, and going about it in a very dishonest way. Get your facts straight. I spent over three months researching all the environmental aspects of this decision. You clearly have invested about 5 minutes of Googling, if even that.

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.

We are in agreement about nuclear, but what does that have to do with photovoltaics?

Re:Almost nothing

[bluGill]

It costs a fortune to keep my apartment at 68 degrees F in the new york winter

Here, have a sweater. Put some blankets on the couch. Turn that thermostat down to 60 or less. You need heat to keep the pipes from freezing.

Turn the heat up if you are sick, otherwise 60 is plenty hot.

Re:Almost nothing

[raygundan]

You two are arguing about different things. He's talking about "energy payoff" and you're talking about "financial payoff."

You're both right. Electricity is so cheap right now that *financial* payoff can take more than a decade. In terms of the energy requirement for production, though, panels pay themselves off in a few years (my research put the figure at more like 3 or 4 years).

So, to set a few things straight:

1. Buying panels is only a financial gain in the long-term. To pay themselves off at today's power rates (assuming they don't increase) it will take more than a decade. However, the panels will last a good 20 years, and they *will* be a financial gain in the long run.

2. Producing panels does not "use more energy than the panels will produce." The panels will produce enough energy to pay this back in a few years-- it varies by panel, but in the 3-4 year ballpark. And again, they will last around 20 years.

However, assuming that in their entire lifetime the panels only made 1.1x the amount of energy required to make them, it's still a net gain. Can you think of another way to invest 100kwhs and some cash, and end up with 110kwhs? And in this case, the numbers are more like 100kwhs, some cash, and ending up with 500kwhs and more cash than you started with.

It does sound like he got a hell of a deal, though. The systems I've been looking at cost about as much as a small car.

Re:Almost nothing

[cmowire]

Yeah.

Unfortunately, most of them revolve around irrational whackos getting in the way.

We don't shut down coal or oil or natural gas power plants after 30 years, we upgrade them. Yet we worry about how to decomission power plants properly?

More people are killed each year in accidents at non-nuclear-related plants, mines, and processing facilities than are killed at nuclear plants, mines, and processing facilities.

The radiation put out by the thorium and uranium in coal is greater than the allowable amount of radation allowed out of a nuclear power plant.

We don't build Chenobryl-style reactors anymore. Three Mile Island was about as bad as things could get with our reactors and a pebble bed or IFR is even safer. Remember, if TMI was so bad, why wasn't there a cancer spike?

Nuclear waste is only a problem because we're not allowed to reprocess it. We already know how to reprocess the fuel to get more use out of it. We also have a good line about how to deal with the really toxic stuff -- bombard it with neutrons in a controlled fashion to reduce all of the stuff that won't burn in a reactor will be transmuted to lead.

Remember, the really radioactive stuff that makes it dangerous to be around and hot to the touch is much decayed after periods as short as 10 years.

Yep... Only rational reason to be wary is just the problems caused by irrational folk.

Re:Almost nothing

[Zoyd]

I wonder what the total environmental burden of making the photovoltaic panels actually is

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter14.htm l

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF SOLAR ELECTRICITY

Even if there were a competition between solar and nuclear electricity, there is no technically valid reason to prefer the former. It was pointed out previously that production of the materials for deploying a solar cell array requires burning 3% as much coal as would be burned in generating the same amount of electricity in coal-burning power plants. Roughly the same is true for the power tower and wind turbine applications of solar energy. That means that they produce 3% as much air pollution as coal burning. This is not a great environmental problem, but it still makes them more harmful to health than nuclear power. In addition, there are long-term waste problems, discussed in Chapter 12, which pose many times more of a health problem than the widely publicized nuclear waste. There are lots of poisonous chemicals used in fabricating solar cells, such as hydrofluoric acid, boron trifluoride, arsenic, cadmium, tellurium, and selenium compounds, which can cause health problems. Also, there is much more construction work needed for solar installations than for nuclear; construction is one of the most dangerous industries from the standpoint of accidents to workers.

If photovoltaic panels on houses become widespread, how many people would be killed and injured in cleaning or replacing solar panels on roofs, or in clearing them of snow? What about the dangers in repairing the complex electric conversion systems? Over a thousand Americans now die each year from electrocution, and the power-conditioning equipment needed for a solar electricity installation would represent a major increase in this risk. Back-up systems, most especially diesel engines in the home, have serious health problems. Diesel exhausts include some of the most potent carcinogens known, and they contribute to most of the other air pollution problems discussed in connection with coal burning in Chapter 3.

Large solar plants also create environmental and ecological problems. What happens to the land and animals that live on it when a 5-mile diameter area is covered with solar cells or mirrors? Desert areas, which are most attractive for solar installations, are especially fragile in this regard.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter12.htm l

Deaths Caused
Source First 500 years Eventually
Nuclear
High-level waste 0.0001 0.018
Radon emissions 0.00 -420
Routine emissions (Kr,Xe,T,14C) 0.05 0.3
Low-level waste 0.0001 0.0004
Coal
Air pollution 75 75
Radon emissions 0.11 30
Chemical carcinogens 0.5 70
Photovoltaics for solar energy
Coal for materials 1.5 5
Cadmium sulfide 0.8 80

I live walking distance from work.

[aoteoroa]

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.

Re:I live walking distance from work.

[Leroy_Brown242]

I go to the gym 3 days a week, before work.

I laugh at my cow-workers who complain about not sleeping well, and being tired when they get into work in the morning.

By the time they are bitching, I've been up for hours and I'm ready to work.

Re:I live walking distance from work.

[15973]

Walking to work also helps clear your head first thing in the morning (you'd be surprised how much it helps...). And if you're just outside walking distance, it'd still save you money in the long run to spend $500 on a bike and ride to work.

Re:I live walking distance from work.

[mutterc]

Cue the cartoon where people are taking the elevator down from the office, driving to the gym, taking the elevator up there, only to get on the Stairmaster.

Using a clothes line...

[n1ywb]

instead of a clothes dryer.

Oh yeah and shooting assholes who enforce CC&Rs or other restrictions on clothes lines.

Re:Using a clothes line...

[n1ywb]

I don't know how you got from clothesline to cheap white trash, but I think it involves being an assclown.

Got a mac mini!

[Drakker]

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.

Re:Got a mac mini!

[Drakker]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20050216/apple- mac-mini-computer-06.html

They quote 20w when playing back DVDs. I don't remember which article (from a mac website) was quoting 9.5w when doing basic work (like email, web browsing, word processing, etc, what I tend to do most of the time). So here are the numbers. :)

Thermostats

[SunFan]

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.

New Technology

[nstrupp]

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.

Re:New Technology

[HeyLaughingBoy]

My house was built in the 50's when no one cared about energy

My first house was like this. Built in the early 50's, 1,000 sq ft. I added insulation under the attic floorboards, and the house had brand new HVAC system and electronic timer thermostat. With all that, a $200 heating bill in winter was average. I thought that was normal: it gets *cold* in Minnesota.

Then we moved to a house built in the mid 80's. Twice the sq. footage, plenty of big windows, old HVAC... and the highest heating bill in 2 years is $80! In summer, the cost of A/C is barely noticeable. It's insane how much difference insulation everywhere and good sealing makes.

Of course I do have an 18 mpg SUV to make up for it ;-)

Re:False Logic

[SunFan]

Of course conservation isn't the silver bullet of environmentalism, but to say conservation is bad is nuts. If I can save a hundred dollars in heating fuel, I will.

Stop using so much water...

[phallstrom]

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.

Re:Stop using so much water...

[Just Some Guy]

consider a front load washing machine.

Dang! I can't believe I forgot to mention that earlier. I have a Kenmore HE3 washer/dryer set and they rock like no appliances I've ever bought. First, it barely sips water - the advertising is completely accurate. Second, the spin cycle is awesome. The radial velocity of the edge of the barrel on the "high" setting is something like 170 miles per hour. Third, my wife, three small children, and I use almost exactly one 5-gallon tub of soap every six months. At $10 per tub (we buy them once a year when you can get them 2/$20), that's about $1.70 per month in consumables. Fourth, they're huge. A big washer means fewer loads of laundry, which means that you don't have to spend a whole weekend washing your stuff. Finally, this giant graphite washer and dryer pair looks like it came straight out of Darth Vader's laundry room. It frightens small children and impresses the heck out of other geeks.

They're still really expensive, but if you can at all afford them, you have to get these.

install low flow toilets or those kits that limit the amount of water per toilet flush.

Yeah, because 4 1.5 gallon flushes to get rid of Taco Bell is much more efficient than 1 2.5 gallon flush. I'll stick with the "stand up first or take your chances" model I currently have, thanks.

How to save gas and increase time

[BlueFashoo]

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!

We live in a climate-appropriate house.

[mellon]

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.

Re:We live in a climate-appropriate house.

[Photar]

Daily watering is bad, the best way to water your yard is to give it a deep soaking ever week or two. Watering daily stunts the root system of the grass and propetuates the dependance of daily watering.

Re:To be perfectly honest..

[Leroy_Brown242]

I don't think you're a bad person for leaving using all that electricity.

I think you're a bad person for not thinking there is anything wrong with it.

What high energy prices?

[0x69]

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.

slashdot in lynx

[wdr1]

I read Slashdot in lynx. Does that count?

-Bill

I chose to ...

[Muad'Dave]

... 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.

Energy is always conserved

[waynegoode]

I don't have to do anything. Don't you remember your physics?

Energy is always conserved, without a bit of help from anyone.

Now if we could only find a way to conserve entrophy.

Lots of ways

[linuxwrangler]

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

Re:turn off the heat

[UberChuckie]

Buy a programmable thermostat. I have mine programmed to turn off when I leave for work and turn on shortly before you come home. That way you save energy and still have a warm house when you get home. In addition, I turn the heat off when I go to bed and it comes back on just before the time you get up in the morning. According to gas company, I have used 25% less natural gas than I did last year (it was installed in the summer) and it is colder this winter than last.

Manual Transmission

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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).

Re:Manual Transmission

[chris_mahan]

Coasting in neutral is illegal in California.

Re:Manual Transmission

[molo]

FYI, in modern cars, using engine breaking on the downhills can will use less gas than putting it in neutral. The inertia of the car moving keeps the cylinders turning with minimal fuel. Of course, this might not be helpful if you're just going to have to go back uphill.. but if there's a stop sign or light at the bottom of the hill, its probably worth it.

-molo

Re:Manual Transmission

[bmwm3nut]

Use the fuel for acceleration, then shift to neutral for downhill/flat coasting will really decrease your car's fuel consumption

this was true in the days of carberators. now with electronic fuel injection, coasting does nothing, and actually may increase fuel usage. the engine computer is constantly monitoring the engine speed and the throttle position. there are presets in the computer that if the engine speed is too high compared to the throtte position it will quit firing the injectors until the speed comes back down. so when you go down a long steep hill, chances are that your ecu has turned off your injectors, and you're burning no fuel. i know this is true on my old '89 toyota with a very primitive efi system - so it's gotta be true on newer cars.

Re:Manual Transmission

[ponos]

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.

All modern cars turn fuel consumption OFF when you are going downhill without pressing the gas pedal with any gear except neutral. This is because the energy of the car keeps the engine rotating. When you use neutral you consume SOME fuel simply in order to keep the engine revolving (however, with neutral the car does not decelerate). Also, moving with low speed in the plains (~55 mph?) is very energy efficient, much more than going up and down hills. You simply cannot get back 100% of the energy that you spent to climb the hill.

P.

simple, inexpensive things

[NaturePhotog]

We've been following the 10 simple ideas that elid linked to, and while our energy usage wasn't that high to begin with, it's definitely cutting our energy use further.

• 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.

How about LEDs?

[stu42j]

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.

compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)

[GreenSwirl]

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.

Fairly clear?

[Brandybuck]

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?

driving

[LordMyren]

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

Dimmable Fluorescents

[LordMyren]

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

The summary missed the point.... So do the posters

[DerekLyons]

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? Has anyone come up with really nifty ways to cut their energy consumption without sacrificing their technical lifestyle?

You do realize the conserving energy affects the amount of oil imported almost not at all? Most of the electrical energy (99%+) generated from fossil sources in this country comes from domestic gas and coal. (Most of the responses in this thread are about saving electricity.) That's not to say that conserving those isn't important, but that your concerns and your solutions are somewhat disconnected.

It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'.

I wonder where you've been through the last three decades, conservation has been high on the list of solutions since the early 70's. Don't you ever wonder why those excess grocery bags are getting so thin? Why we have 'green' PC's, and the push for electric cars? Why soda cans are thinner and lighter? Conservation. (Which is a long term solution, not a short term one.)

Re:False Logic

[SunFan]

Simple, trade in your heating-oil furnace for a P4.

I want to heat my home not burn it down!

Brain dump of things that really work

[Yonder Way]

* 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.

Re:False Logic

[pla]

I was going to back you up by finding out how many thousands of years it takes to go from organic material to oil

To "oil", in the sense of the big underground lakes of black goo, it takes a VERY long time, on the order of millions of years rather than thousands.

To turn plants into something useable as fuel, however? It takes a few hours to a few months, depending on what you want.

Slashdot itself recently covered a fellow who has come up with a way to turn just about anything organic into substances similar to the end products of oil refining (gasoline, kerosene, diesel), which even proveably produces more energy than it consumes (discounting the organic waste that goes in for processing, of course), as it uses just the gasseous fractions produced to power the entire process.

And of course, turning corn (or any high sugar or starch content plant matter) into ethanol (really quite a good fuel - clean, high energy content, no exotic conditions needed to burn it, and not even toxic to humans in reasonable quantities) we've known how to do throughout all of known history.

And let's not skip the obvious one - firewood. Granted, the way we get it now taps into a resource that takes decades or even centuries to regenerate, but we could specifically use five to ten year rotating microforests of ultra-fast growing plants such as paulownia (particularly interesting because you don't need to replant them when you cut them down - With a bit of care in the first year, a new one just grows from the stump when you chop it down).


So, can we get new underground-viscous-black-goo-oil on a timescale of a few years? No. But currently, and for at least the next decade or two, the single most efficient way to use solar energy (the only real "source" of new energy available on our planet) has existed on this planet for longer than we have - Photosynthetic green plants. We just need to exercise some care in how we make use of them so as to minimize the environmental impact of harvesting.

Coasting is better for fuel economy

[Tau Zero]

Sorry, you're wrong. Take it from an automotive guy: the engine is controlling its fuel-air ratio to be stoichiometric for the catalytic converter. If you are turning the engine faster by driving it with the car, not only are you increasing the inertial forces on the pistons and the drag against the cylinder walls, but you are pulling more air past the throttle body and having to burn more fuel in it to maintain the correct mixture for pollution control. The only exception to this is if the engine computer recognizes the situation and cuts off fuel delivery to the engine; your car may or may not.

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!