Saving Energy, Saving Money, Protecting the Environment

Firstly - why bother?

• Save money. Fuel is not free!
• Protect the Environment. Wasting energy damages the environment by global warming. Using your car wastefully also pollutes the atmosphere directly.
• Conserve irreplaceable oil and gas reserves. An oil industry executive said recently in an interview that we don't need to worry about running out of oil because there is enough left to last 40 years. But what happens in 41 years? I probably won't be around by then because I am already over 60, but hopefully most of you will be.
• At the moment it seems like a tossup whether we will cook ourselves alive by runaway global warming or the oil and gas will run out before we get to that point. In the 19th century the world managed quite well without depending on oil but if we don't want to go back to horse power, steam trains and sailing ships we need to take some action now.

So what can we do? There are actually many things we can do:
In the home:

• Use Energy saving light bulbs. I could write pages on this but not here. I will just say that Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs have now improved to the point that they can replace traditional light bulbs 99% of the time. Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights are much more efficient than CFL lights but are still expensive and limited in their use. No doubt in 10 years LED lights will replace CFLs, just as CFLs have replaced traditional light bulbs, but we are not quite there yet.
• Eliminate draughts from doors, windows etc. You may also have excessive draughts from oversized ventilators or unintentional draughts around holes through your walls where cables, pipes etc pass through.
• Insulate your house as well as you can. Consider installing double glazing and wall insulation. What you should do depends very much on the climate where you live.
• Don't use air conditioning more than you need to.
• Switch off the TV etc instead of leaving them on standby. Switch off your computer if you are not going to use it for 2 hours or more.
• When replacing appliances look for more efficient ones (Energy star rated)
• Use a shower instead of the bath.
• Buy 'green' electricity rather than the cheapest.
• You can probably think of many more!
• Your car - Very briefly, you can:
• Drive more efficiently.
• Keep your car in shape.
• Reduce your mileage by planning and combining trips.
• Choose a more efficient vehicle, when the time comes to replace your car.

Another possibility is to generate your own electricity, from wind or solar power. You should be able to connect your generator to the utility's network, and may be paid for what you generate by a special 'feed-in tariff'. If a feed-in tariff is available it should insure that your generator makes (or saves) enough money to cover the cost of your investment. In the USA, Federal and/or State credits to cover a large part of the installation costs are often available instead of a feed-in tariff.
Wind turbines are only possible if you have enough land and the average wind speed is sufficient to make the turbine viable. They must be sited very carefully as trees or buildings nearby can affect them. Also they make some noise and are highly visible. You need to get expert advice.
Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels are silent and much easier to install. They can often be laid flat on your roof. If so they are very unobtrusive.
Yet another possibility is solar powered water heating. Hybrid systems combining direct heating for hot water with electricity generation using PV cells are also becoming available and are more efficient than using two separate systems side by side.