Conserving Energy - Methods and Processes Conserving Energy - Methods and Processes It is probably very urgent that individuals take steps to conserve energy on a large scale. It appears that governments, especially the U.S.
Bush government do not seem to even acknowledge that serious and urgent problems exist, such as Global Warming and about home heating and cooling costs that are spiraling out of control. Politicians seem to talk as though we have absolutely no concerns about either supplies of (oil, natural gas, electricity, nuclear, hydroelectric) or their consequences to the environment. For me, the last straw occurred as I was researching for a recent web-page regarding Global Warming effects in the future, and Local Climate Effects (Radiation Probably Changing the Climate, where I had to research the known quantities of each type of energy source (oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc) and the rates at which we are consuming them. I had previously believed the 'vague and distant' predictions of reliable supplies of all those energy sources for 50 years and beyond. That appears to be farther in the future than politicians see reason to have concern about!
How Can People Conserve Energy
But what I learned, from US Government and reliable industry published reports, was shocking! According to the Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2005, BP, using the 2004 data, the United States (and coastal waters) has 29.4 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and that we are currently using oil up at 6.873 billion barrels per year. This indicates that, without any imported oil, we would use up all of the American proven reserves of oil in just 4.28 years!
FOUR YEARS usage is all we have, ever! Using the 2004 data from the same Report, the United States has 5.293 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves of natural gas, and that we are currently using natural gas up at 0.647 trillion cubic meters per year.
This indicates that, without any imported natural gas, we would use up all of the proven American reserves in just 8.18 years! EIGHT YEARS usage is all we have, ever! The situation regarding known American supplies of Uranium is even more dire. We essentially already mined virtually all of it by the mid-1990s and ALL the Uranium mines were closed down!
Coal seems to be the only fossil fuel that we have in relative abundance, where it would last us for around 250 years, if we remained at current consumption levels. Doesn't it seem like the Government should know about such things? After all, Reports published by our Government provide essentially identical numbers. And maybe even TELL US of the frightening lack of long-term supplies, which we therefore assume are very secure? Unfortunately, the only people who intimately know these things are the companies that make enormous profits from providing them to the public.
It is not really in their financial interest to be honest with us, and therefore scare us to become more energy conscious or to consider the dreaded 'alternative energy sources'. My web-page on those statistics is at Published Actual Energy Supplies, Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Uranium Public Service Categories Reducing YOUR Energy Needs These reasons above are the primary cause that I composed this web-page, which contains suggestions on how to cut in half (or less) YOUR energy consumption, without significant hardship. If we do NOT do something, as individuals, think about the alternative.
Our Government will not even admit that we are causing Global Warming, even though many responsible scientists (including me!) made this situation clear at the first Earth Day in April 1970. We had plenty of data to PROVE that Global Warming was already happening, but the giant energy companies, and the Nation's Economy in general, did not want to hear it, because their profits and the sense of prosperity would have been damaged. In any case, even now knowing that around 1/3 of the North Polar Ice Cap has melted, and innumerable other obvious effects, there still seems to be denial among the Executives of those companies and the Politicians whose Campaigns they generously finance. So it would certainly be 5 or 10 or 15 more years, before our Congress will even start to act, and even then they will be hesitant, because their close friends, the giant energy companies, would have profits reduced by any actions they might take. A group of respected researchers announced in late 2007 that the ENTIRE North Polar Ice Cap will have melted by the summer of 2013!
But you can see from the figures above, we will certainly have catastrophic shortages of any or all of those energy supplies, before Congress even gets around to thinking about doing something! So, as individuals, we will have to do it ourselves!
Eliminating Nearly All of Air Conditioning Costs For people who own a house or other building, for several years we have provided free plans to accomplish (virtually) Free Air Conditioning (for most climates). Only a few thousand people seem to have installed such systems so far, but it is certainly a easy and inexpensive way to save $1,000 or more each summer on A/C electric bills. This system is based on the well-known fact that, if there were a natural cave beneath your house, it would be at a pretty constant temperature, the average annual temperature for that climate, much cooler than the daytime summer temperatures in nearly all climates. The system essentially creates an 'artificial cave' beneath the house, using standard Engineering calculations to keep it as small (and inexpensive) as possible while still providing both short-term and long-term cooling for the building. If the climate has severe winters, the system can also be used as a source for (relatively) warmer air to heat up for the house. As an example, near Chicago, the average annual temperature is around 53°F, meaning that the deep soil will normally be near that temperature, and a 'cave' down there would also naturally be around that temperature.
If a house in summer is surrounded by 90°F air, and the interior house air is near that, by circulating the house air through 'the cave' it can come back into the house at the 60°F (and 40% relative humidity) which is the design output of a standard air conditioner system. The same standard wall thermostat can control a blower that pushes air through 'the cave' (actually clean PVC plastic sewer pipe tubes!) and the comfort level in the house is EXACTLY the same as if a conventional central A/C system were being used.
You just wouldn't have to hear the noise of that fan outside and wouldn't have to watch the electric meter spinning around so fast! In the winter, that house near Chicago sometimes has to draw in outside air that is below 0°F to heat it up to the 120°F that it might send out the warm air registers to the rooms. If the 'cave' air at 53°F was heated instead, only around half the heating effort (and heating fuel) would be needed for the same comfort. This system (and much more) is presented at: a href='Air Conditioning (1978, December 2000) Eliminating About Half of Current Winter Heating Costs and Fuel Consider my example, of a single person living in a 9-room house, 2100 square-foot, house. During the winter, the central heating system heats the entire house EVEN THOUGH I CAN ACTUALLY ONLY BE IN ONE ROOM AT ANY ONE TIME! I might close off the heat registers in a room or two which I rarely use, but I was still essentially heating the entire house, continuously, even though only one room truly needed to be heated! The fact that most people spend most of their time in a single room for many hours (like a bedroom at night, or the living room or den in the evening) and that no one at all may be home during the daytime when everyone is at work or at school, seems to show how foolish it is to be constantly heating an entire house.
Now consider this: My living room, which I tend to also use as an office, is fairly large, 14 feet by 20 feet with an 8.5 foot ceiling. This is around 2400 cubic feet of air. The (giant) blower on my standard furnace circulates 2100 cubic feet per minute, and the warm air from the furnace comes out at around 120°F, nice and warm. Now, say that when I am NOT in that room for many hours (as when at work or when sleeping in a bedroom), I allowed that room to (naturally) cool down to around 45°F. And say that I greatly increased the size of the house warm air branch ducts (NOT the furnace!) and room warm air registers, and I installed 'electric or pneumatic solenoids' to be able to direct ALL the furnace's 2100 cfm of warm air to that one room! You can probably see that I would only need to send around (2400.
(70 - 45) / (120 - 45) or 800 cfm of furnace air into that room to get the air temperature up to an average of 70°F! And it would only take the furnace (800 / 2100) or 0.38 minute, or 23 seconds, to do that! See the point? On most days near Chicago, virtually NO heating is necessary to keep a room in a well-insulated house at 45° or higher, so ZERO heating fuel is involved, for the 8+ hours at work or the 8+ hours in bed in the bedroom. When first entering that (large) room, yes, there can be up to 23 seconds while the room feels cool or cold, but by 35 seconds, the room feels extremely cozy because it is actually 'too warm' for a little while! (This is necessary because the new warm air in the room needs to warm up the furniture, walls, carpeting, etc in the room, and everything gets up to proper temperature quicker if the air is briefly warmer than normal. It is actually a very nice sensation, to be in a large room, in winter, that is extremely cozy!
Experience has shown that at least one bathroom should always be kept fully warmed, but all the other rooms can be 'intermittently heated' in this way. The fuel savings can be amazing! If only 1/4 of the house is being heated at any one time, then only around 1/4 of the heating fuel is consumed!
This means that heating bills are FAR less. Even better, only a small fraction of the fossil fuels get burned, and therefore there is less dependence on foreign fuel supplies and FAR less contribution to sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is the primary cause of global warming. A win-win-win situation! What is involved for YOU to do this? Not a lot, really.
You do NOT have to get a new furnace! But MOST of the house warm air duct system and room registers would have to be replaced. You have probably seen (in your basement) some very large shiny ducts up along the ceiling (called main distribution ducts) which are often 8' high and 20' wide. You may have also noticed that they have lots of LITTLE (round) ducts branch off of them which go to the various room registers. All those little ducts would need to be replaced with the 'giant' rectangular main distribution ducts (and suitable giant registers provided in the rooms). The duct system needs to have a way to send ALL of the warm air the furnace can provide to a single room, to be able to heat it up really fast!
You probably realize that each room then also needs its own wall thermostat, absolutely standard products. The only remaining part of the system are the 'gates' that need to get put inside the ducts, to block off heat from going to most of the rooms and to only open when you want a room heated. It turns out that all automobiles use a wonderful method of accomplishing that! When you slide the dashboard heater control to Heat, or Defrost, or Fresh Air, or A/C, there are actually 'pneumatic' (air-powered, or actually vacuum-powered) dampers that open and close the necessary air paths. This technology is at least 50 years old and well developed!
Adapting it to the much larger house ducts is not difficult, and quite inexpensive! There are also other ways to do the same thing. Electrical solenoids could be used (since just a yes/no airflow is desired) but some solenoids can make loud noises due to their rapid and powerful motions, but they are only a few dollars each. A very expensive way to go would be to use commercial damper actuators (at $100 or more each), which we do NOT recommend due to the cost. Such devices are silent and open and close air paths slowly, but they are primarily intended for installations where ducts may need to stay partially open. That is not necessary for this system!
Now, I have found that a couple of added features make this system a lot more user-friendly! I found that sensors on doorknobs, to initiate the heating of the room, get medium-sized rooms nicely heated in just the 6 or 8 seconds between touching the doorknob and sitting down in a chair in the room. This minimizes the sensation of being briefly chilly. I found that it is a good idea to delay (completely) shutting off the heat to a room for at least 2 to 5 minutes, for when you go to the kitchen for a snack during TV commercials or need to use the bathroom! There are a few disadvantages to this system. Live house plants do NOT like the great temperature ranges they would have to endure, and they don't! Most pets do not seem to mind too much, but the fact that doors to rooms all normally stay closed for this to work limits their movements, and they generally seem to enjoy staying in a warmed room.
The pet owner would need to decide if one room should stay heated while at work during the daytime, which otherwise would not be necessary. There is a POSSIBLE disadvantage that could be more serious. It may be useful to repaint the interiors of all the rooms! There is a special shellac-based type of primer paint which stops all moisture from penetrating the wall surfaces (and then normal can be painted over the top of that shellac Primer. The reason this can be important is not necessarily obvious. When the walls of a room are rather suddenly heated from 45°F to 70°F or above, on a regular basis, the Indoor Relative Humidity can change very rapidly in the room, which could force moisture either into or out of the walls. If such moisture were allowed to regularly be penetrating the wall surfaces, combined with a slight expansion and contraction of the wall materials with the heat changes, it could be possible that hairline cracks might form between sheets of drywall.
By using the shellac-based primer paint, this possibility should be eliminated, and also house humidity levels should be more easily maintained, too. There is another effect which can be minor or major. The room that you are normally in has air where moisture has been added. It is healthy to keep the IRH (indoor relative humidity) above 30% and even near 40%. This IRH value is true at the warmed air temperature in that room.
When some of that air goes into other (unheated) parts of the house, for scientific reasons, the IRH rapidly increases. If enough of that humidified air is able to get into an unheated room, the IRH can get to be 100%. You have seen this happen in a basement in summer, when warm air from outdoors gets near the cold basement walls or floor, and there is condensation that occurs. Under certain conditions (which can be avoided), such condensation could occur in unheated rooms as described above. Even Better, Eliminating ALL Heating Bills! A new set of web-pages presents several devices which YOU can build, (including the HG 3a system which might be the best of them!) which allows you to ENTIRELY heat your house by allowing the grass mowed from your lawn and the leaves raked from your yard, to NATURALLY decompose.
It turns out that such natural decomposition gives off huge amounts of heat energy, to provide both house heating and hot water heating, at no cost at all! An overview presentation is at HeatGreen - A Non-Fossil-Fueled Home Heating Furnace System. A linked page includes complete construction instructions, which involves around $200 of materials. TV shows, books and lectures are EVERYWHERE describing thousands of more traditional methods of saving energy. We have not commented on them here because they are all so well documented elsewhere. We have some 'more expensive' suggestions, too!. If you own your own home and have a decent sized yard, you might want to consider the NorthWarm Solar Version 2 system, at: It is a separate building that is used to provide enough heat (through underground passages) to the house for most or all of the house's heating needs.
If you are planning a NEW home, you might consider digging the foundation as much as 8 feet deeper, and providing an entirely hidden underground storage chamber for heat. It is realistically possible to store 40,000,000 Btus of summer heat in that chamber, losing about 10 million of that through the insulation surrounding it, but then having 30 MBtu available to heat the house!
With NO oil, natural gas or electricity needed to produce that heat, it is simply 'heat from the previous summer!' Without a Furnace or Air Conditioner (1977, Nov. 2000) That system also provides for all the air conditioning the house could possibly need! Best of all, it is absolutely invisible, being entirely UNDER the basement floor!
(That storage could actually store heat from many different energy sources, and not just natural summer solar energy, such as a woodstove. Also, if you are planning a new home, and are willing to have an 'unusual' house, maybe the NorthWarm Version 1 house, which ENTIRELY heats exclusively by solar heating, might make sense. NorthWarm Totally Solar - Version 1 (1979) This presentation was first placed on the Internet in November 2005. Energy-Related presentations in this Domain: A thorough presentation.
(June 2004, June 2008) (June 2004, Feb. 2007) HeatGreen - A Simple Water Heater, HG3a (biodecomposition) (March 2007) HeatGreen - A Simple, Home Heating Furnace, HG3a (biodecomposition) (March 2007) Low-tech, low cost approach (April 2007) Naturally, without a Furnace or Air Conditioner (1977, Nov. Oil, Natural Gas, Uranium supplies and consumption (May 2010 Report) Environmental Effects of Asphalt Pavements, Roofs, and Parking Lots (August 2007) From the Earth's Spinning (1990, Nov. 2002) (1990, Dec. Tornadoes, including How they Form.
A potential energy source (Feb. 2000, May 2009). Tornadoes, including How they Form. A potential energy source (Feb. 2000, May 2009), Floating Communities for Survival For Sealevel Rising (July 2008). (August 2003) NorthWarm Totally 100% Solar Heated House - Version 1 (1979) Photovoltaic Cells, PV, Electricity from Sunlight (Jan 2002) 200 mile per hour TRANS Super-Efficient Transportation System (invented in 1989) Battery-Powered, Hybrid Cars and Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles (April 2006) Practical Wind-Generated Electricity (Residential, some Watts) (1975 and April 1998) Practical Large-Scale Wind-Generated Electricity, 1200 KiloWatts (Community, a thousand homes) (a million construction jobs and 12,000 MegaWatts of electricity Nationally) (June 2007) (63,000 MegaWatts of Energy) (Sept 2006). Productive Disposal of Nuclear Power Plant Wastes (1980s, Sept 2005) Various Methods.
Creating Light and Heat. Related to Energy Crises From solar, wind or other sources nearly 24 Hours a Day (2001, tested 2003) A Unique Method of Using Solar Energy to Generate Electricity (late 2010). Pipeline Local Climate Effects (August 2005) Natural, GREEN and FREE! (1978, December 2000). An Entirely Different Approach to a Hybrid Vehicle (1992, May 2008) Fireplace, Woodstove - JUCA Super-Fireplaces (designed 1972, manufactured 1973 on, still not matched).
Wood as a Heating Fuel (published 1978). Faster than anywhere else on Earth. Bernoulli Effect, Reaction Lift (April 2003). Greatly Reducing Turbulence and Drag for Aircraft and Airfoils, TURCAN (summer 1998). My Concept of a GREEN Campus (1990, Dec 2008). A Violation of the Conservation of Angular Momentum (Sept 2006) A Credible Approach to Hurricane Reduction (Feb 2001). Significant Improvement (2001) Why No Leaders Seem to See Urgency in Global Warming.
(Artificial Tides) (1998, 2010). (Energy Harvesting) (1975, 2010). Make All Your Own GREEN Electricity (2001, 2003, 2010), from a Radiant Woodstove (published 1979). Firewood Info Chart. This page -is at This subject presentation was last updated on -Link to the Link to the to: Public4@mb-soft.com C Johnson, Theoretical Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of Chicago.
It's no surprise that energy costs money, yet some people greet their bills each month with shock when they see precisely how much their power consumption is costing them. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the average family spends some $1,600 per year on utility bills alone. Anything you can do to. Let's take a look at 10 painless ways to. Use Your Thermostat Turning up the temperature during the summer and turning it down during the winter are great ways of putting your thermostat to work for your wallet. The DOE recommends setting the air conditioner to 74 degrees and the furnace to 68 to keep your house comfortable while reducing your energy costs and decreasing the demand on the energy grid.
A programmable thermostat lets you make the house hotter or cooler during periods when you aren't home. This reduces the temperature difference between the exterior and interior of your house, which in turn reduces energy loss. If you don't have a programmable thermostat, you can manually adjust your existing unit. Ceiling Fans If you have ceiling fans in your house, turn them on and use them properly. According to Energy Star, a voluntary labeling program sponsored by the DOE and the U.S. Ceiling fans should be set to spin counter-clockwise in the summer, which pulls hot air up to the ceiling and away from the living space.
In the winter, reverse the setting so the fans blow the hot air down. Energy Star Appliances Energy Star also identifies energy-efficient appliances, including washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, dehumidifiers, room air conditioners, computers, and more. When shopping for new appliances, look for the Energy Star label, and rest assured that the items you are purchasing will.
Of course, you wouldn't want to increase the use of these items just because they save energy. This is similar to the potential moral hazard of low-fat food: consuming more defeats the purpose. Home Electronics Stereos, DVD players, televisions, kitchen appliances, and any other plugged-in appliances draw a small amount of power even when turned off. Per the BBC, Large LCD and plasma televisions consume up to 400 watts of energy when in use and about four watts when not in use.
Use the surge suppressor to turn them completely off when not in use, or unplug these items until you really need them. Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs A quick and easy way to reduce your energy use is to replace existing incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent ones. According to General Electric (NYSE:), compact fluorescent bulbs 'use two-thirds less energy than standard incandescent light bulbs, and last up to 10 times longer.' GE reports that using a 13-watt compact fluorescent bulb in place of a 60-watt incandescent one will result in a $30 savings in energy costs over the life of the bulb. Regardless of the bulbs you use, turn them off when you leave the room. For laundry rooms, garages, basements, and other little-used areas, consider the installation of timers that automatically turn off the lights after a preset amount of time – just in case you forget to shut them off.
Conserve water are available for your shower, faucets and toilets. In addition to installing these items, be sure to replace faucets that drip, fix toilets that leak, and turn off the spigot when brushing your teeth or scrubbing dishes. Every drop of water you save contributes to the conservation of this valuable resource – and we're talking water here, not just money. Seal and Insulate A well-insulated house reduces the amount of money you will spend on heating and cooling. Start by checking your attic. If your attic is unfinished, you shouldn't be able to see the floor joists.
If you can see them, add more insulation. Also, be sure to fill in and seal any holes in your exterior walls, such as where pipes come into the house, and around windows and doors. Wrap your boiler and exposed pipes with insulation to help them maintain the proper temperature. Change/Empty Your Filters Change the filter on your furnace on a frequent basis. Many furnace manufacturers recommend doing it quarterly or even monthly to keep the unit operating at peak efficiency. Similarly, empty the lint filter in your dryer after every use.
Even a small amount of lint reduces energy efficiency. Close the Doors and More Don't waste energy. Close the doors on your refrigerator and house as quickly as possible. Keep fireplace dampers shut when not in use. Close the curtains to cover your windows at night. All of these little efforts help to conserve energy by preventing heat loss.
Use Your Surroundings Strategically placed trees can help reduce your heating and cooling costs. During the summer, trees provide shade. During the winter, trees provide a windbreak. Positioning large deciduous trees in the right places can reduce cooling costs by up to 25%, according to the DOE.
These deciduous trees should be planted on the south and west sides of your home, and strategically positioned to shade hard surfaces, including driveways and patios, to maximize their impact. Because they lose their leaves in winter, they allow the sun to warm your house. Evergreen trees planted on the north side of your home will help to shield the house from cold winds in every season. Small Steps Lead to Big Savings.
Conserving Energy Image
Do your part to make energy conservation a habit; it's a move with positive implications for both the environment and your wallet. For more on going green, check out our.