Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

Several weeks ago, Al Gore made a speech. It wasn’t just any speech. It is a national call to action such as we haven’t heard from our elected leaders in quite some time.

Gore proposed a challenge and plan for the USA to generate 100% of our electricity in 10 years from clean, renewable, carbon-free sources. He calls the plan “Repower America”.

This video summary does a nice job of getting the big points across in less than 4 minutes. (The image you see is an Apollo rocket, fulfilling the 10-year plan that JFK made.

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I have a product, known variously as the “centometer”, “cent-o-meter”, “cent-a-meter”, “powercost monitor” and “power cost meter”. It shows your electrical consumption in dollars and cents on a little display you can put where you like. Your electrical use is no longer “out of sight, out of mind”.

Update: 3/10/2009 — the same unit is now being sold under the Black and Decker label.

And boy does it work!

I bought one and installed it, and, having received our first electricity bill since then, can confidently say that it will pay for itself in less than a year. Maybe a lot faster than that!

Update, 2009: Oh yeah, a LOT more quickly than a year!!

Where To Buy The Cent-a-Meter

I’ll call it the Cent-o-meter, because the TV show Wa$ted used that name. The model I got is officially called the PowerCost Meter, and I purchased it at the TerraPass Store for $134. Update, 2009 — BlueLine’s PowerCost Monitor is now available for about $100 at Energy Circle’s store (more…)

MoveOn.org has a lot of power, and they are asking as many people as possible to sign a petition to let our government know we agree, there’s an energy crisis.

Here’s the link: http://pol.moveon.org/energyderby/?id=13225-6602067-2onQnXx&t=1

I am on a mission to find only top quality CFL bulbs that won’t disappoint. (Update 9/08: Mission accomplished; see my CFL Review here)

Why? There are a lot of really bad CFLs out there. This is probably why most of my friends and family who aren’t quite as, um, obsessive as I about this kind of thing have given it a good try, but been sorely disappointed.

So I am still on a mission, and will report back in a while, but until then, I did find one site that lists a number of different bulbs with honest assesments, and actually has CFL reviews by real people. (more…)

I read (and write) a lot of lists on how to save energy. I like this one from Co-op America because it quantifies the potential savings of each item, and also breaks the list into several levels of effort and cost.

The first level shows how to save energy with little effort and a good payoff.

I learned a couple new ones — did you know that you can fill up the empty spaces in your fridge with water, since water will retain the cold and not get blown away every time you open the door?

We have been washing with cold water for the last year. Our clothes are clean, we can do fewer loads because less sorting is needed, and there’s less color fading. No brainer. (more…)

The drumbeat is sounding louder and louder. In the last few days, a new site answers the question What must we do to fight global warming?, called 350.org. The site is based on the assertion that we must get our planet’s CO₂ levels to 350. It’s higher now.

(Technically: 350 is the number of parts per million or PPM of molecules of CO₂ in our atmosphere. This is the amount that scientists believe is the maximum the climate can sustain on its own.)

Bill McKibbon has been an important voice working to convince all of us that global warming, climate change or whatever you want to call it is not just happening, but that it is something we can solve. (more…)