Alternate Energy Reports

Electricity is important to all of us and must be used wisely. We want to save money as well as saving the environment.

Check the Label:
The Federal Trade Commission requires manufacturers to put a label on each appliance that is an energy guide for that appliance. The label is black and yellow paper. The label gives the energy rating, the estimated yearly energy consumption, and a comparison of energy consumption and efficiency with other appliances. By comparing labels with other appliances you can choose the most efficient.

What does an Energy Star Mean?
The Energy Star on an appliance means it is more energy efficient than comparable model with the Energy Star.  It also means the unit has been tested and proven to exceed efficiency standards set by the federal government by at least 20% to as much as 110%. An Energy Star means it has the Seal of Approval of the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Bigger is not always better when buying appliances. Determine the size you need and then shop accordingly.  If you need a bigger appliance then expect it to consume more energy.

There are different numbers to consider depending on the appliance.
Examples are:
Refrigerator – choose the one that has the lowest consumption per kilowatt hour.

Heat Pump – choose the one that has a higher HSPF or heating seasonal performance factor

Dishwasher – choose the one with a higher energy factor

Regular maintenance, cleaning and repair can prolong the life of your appliances and save money on utility bills.

Dust can cause lamps to heat up and not burn as brightly. Cleaning dust from them eliminates this problem. Dirt and grime can cause ventilating fans to work less efficiently.

Consider the placement of heat producing appliances especially next to a thermostat. The heat from the appliance can cause the air conditioner to come on often using more energy.

Frost free refrigerators and freezers are great, but if you have one that is not frost free make sure you defrost often because too much frost causes the motor to work harder.

Hot and cold air can both escape through windows that are not sealed properly. This causes both the heater and air conditioner to use more energy. The leaks can be corrected by suing weather stripping or caulking around your windows. Replacing older windows with more energy efficient ones can also reduce your energy bill.

Regularly scheduled maintenance of your air conditioning unit and the water hearer can save on repairs later. An insulating blanket for the water heater can also save on energy.

Cleaning the sediment from the water heater annually can prevent problems and save money on energy.

While active geothermal energy that produces steam for electric production is restricted to unique environments where magma reaches near the crust, passive geothermal heating can be used anywhere.  It works by using the heat of the Earth to lower the amount of heating required in your home or business.  This is possible because the mass of the entire planet is kept at a constant 50F/20C or so.

All that’s required is a long length of pipe and excavation equipment.  Usually this snakes through a residential yard in a “closed loop” configuration.  Here water or anti-freeze is circulated within this closed system that allows a lot of surface contact with the subsoil.  The other end is attached to the foundation of your home or business.  The heat is then radiated up through the house itself.  Open loop systems are less commonly used and cycle water from the bottom of a pond.  This requires less pipe and digging, but may be subject to local environmental regulations.

Since people are going to need energy, eliminating carbon dioxide emissions will require adopting renewable energy.  However, the cost has been prohibitively high for most of the commonly used and available methods.  Home generation has many possibilities, including getting a check from the power company for excess power that you’ve sold back.

The best and only way to make its manufacture as cheap as possible.  Several recent innovations in solar technology have brought humankind to the brink of affordable solar power that can be used anywhere.  Flexible film solar can be built into just about anything, from awnings to bikinis.  New advances is how to put the flexible sheets together has recently come from an American company that literally prints the solar cells onto a substrate at dizzyingly fast rates.  Even solar paint is on the horizon.

The next step to really getting solar everywhere as it should be it to have similar revolutionary advances in storage technology.

One of the direct consequences of climate change is the rise in sea levels.  Observations since the mid-19th century, though convouluted, show a global average of about 20cm/8 inches in that time.  Some coral atolls in the Pacific Island nations of Micronesia are already disappearing.  This is demonstrated by the Maldives, Kiribati and Tuvalu – all nations that may disappear beneath the waves .

With the onset of increasingly frequent and fierce cyclones or hurricanes, the islands are physically weakened and begin to sink a bit.  Even a .5cm/1/8 inch increase in the level of the seas could half of some small islands to disappear by 2012.  The most populous island threatened by 2020 is New Guinea and it’s mirror twin Papua New Guinea, home to many of the last “undiscovered” tribes.  Because of climate change, that first contact may be an evacuation of the island observed after inundation with rising sea waters.