Sorry for the suggestive title — yes, you can conserve energy by turning off the lights. But don’t turn off the light for romance (candles, which are apparently a horrible source of global warming, alas, are the lighting of choice :-). But in the other 99.999999% of your life (your number of 9’s may vary), there are some real, regular activities
you can do without turning on the lights.
My List of Daily Activities without Light
- Shower. Oh, and in the winter, don’t bother with the bathroom fan.
- Run down to the basement to get something.
- Go outside. Turning on lights actually reduces your ability to see.
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If every one of the 110 Million households in the USA changed just one light bulb to CFL, this would reduce the total output of CO2 emissions in the United States by around 2.6%. Do I have my math right? What assumptions are going into this. It seemed kind of implausible, to be honest. But I think the numbers check out. Have I made an error? (more…)
My wife and I spend a lot of time asking the question, “Why don’t people conserve energy?” Sometimes we get snarky and haughty. But it may not be that people are selfish, or uninformed, or idiots. Indeed, people may be making the most rational decision. But why? The answer reveals one reason why it is so critical that our government force action through legislation. (more…)
Today, oil prices reached another record, just short of $90/barrel. Last year, when the Prudhoe Bay facility run by BP went off line due to a pipeline problem, oil prices were near their current peak of $78/barrel. That was around 14 months ago, and today we have another clear spike. Was there another hurricane? Nope. A severe geo-political event? Nope (well, unless you count Iraq … but let’s not go there, even if it might be the immediate cause … tensions with Turkey, and all). (more…)
This week’s Business Week ran an article called Little Green Lies, The Bitter Education of a Corporate Environmentalist. One thrust of the article involves renewable energy credits (RECs); they are so cheap, and provide such a small benefit (less than 3% of the total revenue), says the article, that they don’t affect what renewable energy facilities get built. This view seems very short-sighted to me. (more…)
Carter, our 10-year-old son, had a great idea a few nights ago: give Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Bulbs back to grown-ups who hand out candy this Halloween. We were talking about costumes, and Carter wanted to be a cactus, then a man dressed in duct-tape clothing (he can make anything out of duct tape!), but then … a wind turbine Halloween costume! Hmmm, we thought — a wind turbine would be a great, simple and really fun Halloween costume. We talked about other alternative energy costumes (solar panels, hydro-electric plants, etc.). but the wind turbine is now in progress. I’ll post a picture when it’s all done.
But then came the idea about giving each neighbor a CFL in exchange for the candy (more…)
