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May 20, 2006 The emphasis of this article is on Little Things and not the many Big Things we could do to save energy and ultimately any time we save energy we lower our impact on the Earth’s environment. Of course, by reducing our energy consumption and continuing to do our normal everyday tasks we reduce demand for energy. If energy remains constant, then our reduced demand would result in lower prices for energy and a better overall standard of living for everyone. If demand for energy goes down and supply also goes down prices may be able to be maintained at their current level and our standard of living will remain constant. By reducing demand for energy we could be prepared for a future of problematic energy sources instead of victims that will have to deal with out of control inflation. It should be noted that in order for even some of these ideas to be implemented we would need the cooperation of the government and some new very limited scope laws. This is because often we as a people don’t do the things we need to do for a better future unless our arms are twisted to an appropriate position. Most expensive and the first item to be discussed are televisions and computer monitors. There are millions of computers and televisions in the United States of America and they all consume vast amounts of power (as a group). CRTs (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors have been around for a very long time. CRTs consume a lot of power compared to newer technologies such as LCD TVs and Plasma TVs. We are currently making a transition from standard TV to HDTV. We should not loose the opportunity in the present to phase out CRT monitors. A schedule should be set where gradually reduce the number of CRT TVs that are sold until they are no longer available. The overall effect as no new CRT TVs are purchased and old CRT TVs will be a reduction in the power consumed by everyone in the United States of America. Those televisions have to be transported by truck to stores and the weight of LCD TVs and Plasma TVs are typically much lower than CRT TVs. So, either more TVs can be transported with the same fuel cost or the same number of TVs can be transported with less cost and fuel oil consumption. Yes, there would be an impact as the price of the cheapest televisions would rise and some people who have less disposable income would have problems purchasing them; however, CRT TVS would still be circulating and repairable. So, we aren’t closing the market for televisions out on the poor and as the technology gets cheaper the effect on the poor will become negligible. Example: 32W 19” LCD Monitor vs. 100W 19” CRT Monitor – reduced power consumption by 2/3. Multiply this by all the CRT monitors in the United States of America. Our second little thing that could be done to help with energy is that no conventional light bulb should be purchased ever again. All light bulbs should be either LED or fluorescent. These light bulbs are very expensive at this moment, but this is largely due to economies of scale. If the only light bulbs you could purchase are LED or fluorescent then the price of these light bulbs would be reduced vastly. Typically, these light bulbs have longer lives than conventional light bulbs in addition to their energy savings. One household purchasing all fluorescent and LED light bulbs will have minimal effect on the overall energy consumption of the United States of America. If every household had to purchase LED or fluorescent light bulbs the effect would be dramatic. An example would be LED Light Bulb consumes 9.5W produces the equivalent light of a 50W conventional light bulb. Imagine if across the United States of America every conventional light bulb were replaced with a LED light bulb! Of course, there is the minor inconvenience that LED light bulbs are quite expensive at the moment. A little regulation in regard to two related electronic devices almost everyone uses in their homes. Power transformers (bricks) that connect to many electronic devices and the nature of electronic devices when they are turned off. It has been shown that power transformers for many electronic devices always draw power – even when the device they power has been turned off. This is a massive (on the scale of all the businesses and homes in the United States of America) waste of power in which no benefit is derived. We should definitively create regulations demanding that all power transformers draw no power when the device they are connected to is turned off! We plug in electronic devices and often they stay plugged in for years at a time. Some very common devices like televisions continue to draw power after you turn them off. It is up to manufacturers and perhaps lawmakers to insist that these devices charge internal batteries and when they are turned off they should draw no power. These batters could store information such as channels and preferences. Such information could even be stored in electronics that do not draw power (EEPROM). Packaging of products in today’s world involves boxes of odd sizes, boxes that are too large for their contents to convey value, bright colored dyes and really all of this is really just waste. There are costs involved in the creation of these bright colored dyes (not to mention environmental impact), natural resources plundered for marketing fluff and excess space taken up in trucks as product are shipped that reduces the efficiency of trucks by reducing the number of product that can be placed in trucks. With a little applied intelligence the marketing fluff could be reduced and along with the marketing fluff efficiency of our product infrastructure. This is not saying that all marketing is evil and should be removed. It is a statement that marketing and its affect on the actual products has escalated to a point of caricature. Garish colors accompany any trip down the aisles of stores. Compete fairly with your products with the stats and the contents of your containers not the brightly covered plastics in which you products are wrapped. One last little thing we could change to improve our energy consumption. Perhaps it is not such a little thing. Imagine a cell of a comic in the Sunday paper. A hybrid car is pictured behind a family. The family members are all obese – each one approximately 200 pounds. It is not beyond reason; I myself am overweight and stand at 5 feet 9 inches tall and 190 pounds. The quote underneath the comic states: I just do not understand why we do not get the mileage on the sticker.
A very simple equation determines how much energy is required to move
an
object and one of its main components is mass. And as Americans on
average
we carry a lot of (extra) mass. If we as a country concentrate on
losing
weight we could induce our automobiles to perform better. It would not
hurt
if we as a country consumed less food, either, reducing demand and
reducing
the amount of food that needs to be transported to feed us.
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