Saturday, July 19, 2008

Change #15 - Turn off those lights!

Space photos of Earth at nightPickens Plan is to replace the natural gas we use to generate electricity with wind power. We can then use the clean burning natural gas to power our cars. That would reduce our oil usage and importation.

The one sentence of the plan that caught my eye is that Mr. Pickens is building a wind farm that could replace 4 power plants.

Yet if we replace our refrigerators with new ones we could have 35 power plants idle.

I like his plan because it can be part of a plan to reduce our oil dependency.

I have another change that would accomplish some of what Mr. Pickens wants and could be accomplished immediately.

I will start with a question.

Does anyone really need to know where stores are in the middle of the night?

Is anyone going to Radio Shack at 3am? Then why is the Radio Shack sign on?

Why are all the mall parking lot lights on in the middle of the night? There are no cars parked.

Conservation was what was hoped for in the seventies when lights had to be turned off. Now we have conservatives telling us that they can spend their money on what they want and there should not be any rules on what they do. They call it a free market. I think they miss the point. By not having enough energy for all they make the commodity scarce and the price higher for everyone. Their selfishness hurts all of us.

Lets start to look at the changes that I have so far proposed.

I use natural gas to heat my home. By insulating I reduce that amount of natural gas used. That amount could be used to fuel a car. I would save on my electricity bill in the summer by reducing the A/C that I would need to keep the home cool.

I have bought new refrigerators and have reduced my electrical consumption.

I have slowed down and increased my gas mileage.

New electronic toys are no longer “instant on” and takes some getting used to, instant gratification has to wait.

New proper sized furnaces would save another 20% of my natural gas usage.

Having solar cells could double our electricity and could be mounted on everyone’s home.

The technology is here. The commitment to achieve energy independence is not. The

Pickens plan can be a change that we could embrace, but there are other easy or low hanging fruit that could be harvested at the same time that would give us the same results faster.

I am still waiting for my one seater electric car that will average 100mpg.

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