[DriveElectric]

A more achievable action would be to ban the manufacture and sale of incandescents in favour of compact fluorescents using a third the power - there's a 10% electricity demand reduction - about the same as all the US nuclear power plants and it could be achieved within three years.

I read a quote somewhere that if everyone in the USA just unplugged our TVs when not using them, the energy savings would be equivalent to two Hoover dams.
If rolling blackouts become a threat, I am confident we can reduce electricity consumption by 20% with minimal impact. There is so much waste in the system currently that there is a lot of low hanging fruit out there. Most energy consultants believe they can walk into any company and save 10% in electricity within 1 week at no cost to the company. Just a change in habits and work practices.

[DriveElectric]

Instead of looking for a new technology, we need to look for a new way of life. Doesn't necessary means that we must get back to caverns, btw...

While I agree with you that we must have a new way of life, I do not see a path to it without a crisis. In general, people will not choose that new path voluntarily. It will take a life changing event to bring home to the masses that we cannot continue with the current track.
What that crisis will be is certainly open to debate.

[ArimoDave]

Not really new, but a good twist and upgrage on a fairly practical idea.
If we run out of oil, though, where are we going to get the material for the plastic fibers?

[DriveElectric]

If we run out of oil, though, where are we going to get the material for the plastic fibers?

We can now make plastic from grass fibers.

[Tyler_JC]

Despite being wrong about most things and bordering on the edge of troll...BiGG has a point. We do waste an awful lot of electricty on lighting. People leave lights on all the time in order to "keep the robbers" away. We leave lights on in order to make it look like people are home when we go elsewhere. There's simply no reason for that. We have raindeer in the winter that light up because it "looks pretty". I honestly doubt we will be doing stuff like that in the future.

[BiGG]

Despite being wrong about most things and bordering on the edge of troll...

I have a feeling I am not wrong at all on most things but will be happy to have you point out anything in specific, most likely you are just not seeing the BiGG picture but I will be happy to help you out with that more in the future like I have been already, but the troll thingy everyone is fixated on here is ridiculous.
I have another feeling I have posted more information of real value then anybody calling me a troll, that should tell you something right there for sure.

[Sgs-Cruz]

YES! What you are saying is what BiGG business of yore did with cheap available energy and all the while we moved this tiny little country right smack to the top-of-the-food-chain! Wait till ya see what else we are currently doing that?s going to keep US there also! Very exciting stuff coming for sure unless of course, you are just one of those boring ol? habitual complainers I suppose! Did we have fiber optic technology like this 35 years ago? Humm?

God dammit, would you please stop saying "we're at the top of the food chain!!" referring to America, and using the phrase "BiGG business"! The first makes you look like a typical arrogant conservative, the second just makes you look like an idiot.

[TrueKaiser]

YES! What you are saying is what BiGG business of yore did with cheap available energy and all the while we moved this tiny little country right smack to the top-of-the-food-chain! Wait till ya see what else we are currently doing that?s going to keep US there also! Very exciting stuff coming for sure unless of course, you are just one of those boring ol? habitual complainers I suppose! Did we have fiber optic technology like this 35 years ago? Humm?

God dammit, would you please stop saying "we're at the top of the food chain!!" referring to America, and using the phrase "BiGG business"! The first makes you look like a typical arrogant conservative, the second just makes you look like an idiot.

look in the mirror.

as for bigg, he makes a very good point and a good idea here.

[BiGG]

YES! What you are saying is what BiGG business of yore did with cheap available energy and all the while we moved this tiny little country right smack to the top-of-the-food-chain! Wait till ya see what else we are currently doing that?s going to keep US there also! Very exciting stuff coming for sure unless of course, you are just one of those boring ol? habitual complainers I suppose! Did we have fiber optic technology like this 35 years ago? Humm?

God dammit, would you please stop saying "we're at the top of the food chain!!" referring to America, and using the phrase "BiGG business"! The first makes you look like a typical arrogant conservative, the second just makes you look like an idiot.

Sure I can & will …. my style changes frequently anyway along with my sound-bites so I will mix it up a little more in the future. Its all about impact on Internet boards and it does get tiring seeing some talking about the “idiots” in Washington and such when a quick look says they don’t appear to be quite the idiots some make them out to be when looking outside of our borders, saying what I did was just a quick way to show that but again, I will try to mix it up better in the future.

Regarding your comment earlier on population growth, yes that is an issue but I don’t think its an issue anywhere in our lifetimes and by the time it becomes one I think it will handle itself. The Information Age is here and all populations everywhere are going to start getting educated within just a few decades’ tops. It’s all different now; the Saddam’s of the world are falling by the wayside quickly allowing the people all over the planet to see the light side of the Dark Ages. The population will find a way to curb growth by giving the population Information & Freedom I believe. Those two items along with the blizzard of technology advancements we see on a daily basis now will be the answer imo.

[PlannerBee]

In one day, that one 100W bulb will burn 2.4 KWHrs, hence burning 72 KWhrs per 30 day month. Assuming electricity at 8c per KWHr, that is nearly $6 per month for one lousy bulb. If you have 10 bulbs running like that, that is nearly $60.

Oh-My-Gawd! Why have we not outlawed incandescent bulbs? I had no clue how much energy they used. Where can I get the least expensive compact flourescents?

[MonteQuest]

Please don't feed the trolls!

[NevadaGhosts]

Please don't feed the trolls!

I'm starting to get a BiGG headache.

[gg3]

ee-yow!, cut the metaprocess nonsense y'all!

Key questions for these lighting systems:

= Energy cost to manufacture, vs. lifetime energy savings in use?

= What facilities exist for dimming or turning off these lights during the day in rooms where light is not needed? This is going to be an absolute essential for people who are on weird schedules (such as yours truly).

Re. unplugging teevees:

Pardon me but I have to make rant-noise about this. When I was a kid, televisions had an "off-on-volume" knob, and when it was "off," no power was used. You walked past the TV when you came in or left the living room, and turned it on or off as the case may be. You didn't turn it on or off from the couch.

Anyone who refuses to think far enough ahead to know that when they enter or leave the living room they need to turn a knob or flick a switch to turn the television set on or off, deserves to become a corpulent obese blob and drop dead of a heart attack or a Monty Pythonesque explosive puking event.

And as for lighted reindeer and similar displays of idiocy: those will decline significantly as the price of electricity goes up.

[ArimoDave]

ee-yow!, cut the metaprocess nonsense y'all!

Key questions for these lighting systems:

= Energy cost to manufacture, vs. lifetime energy savings in use?

= What facilities exist for dimming or turning off these lights during the day in rooms where light is not needed? This is going to be an absolute essential for people who are on weird schedules (such as yours truly).

Re. unplugging teevees:

Pardon me but I have to make rant-noise about this. When I was a kid, televisions had an "off-on-volume" knob, and when it was "off," no power was used. You walked past the TV when you came in or left the living room, and turned it on or off as the case may be. You didn't turn it on or off from the couch.

Anyone who refuses to think far enough ahead to know that when they enter or leave the living room they need to turn a knob or flick a switch to turn the television set on or off, deserves to become a corpulent obese blob and drop dead of a heart attack or a Monty Pythonesque explosive puking event.

And as for lighted reindeer and similar displays of idiocy: those will decline significantly as the price of electricity goes up.

If these are systems which produce more usable light than conventional lighting for the same energy, then they definately have merit -- especially in a workplace environment. The lights at work are always on. The main advantage I see is the avoidance of light flicker associated with most AC lighting. Plus, you get full spectrum light (depending on what frequencies the plasitic filters).

ArimoDave

[Daculling]

Replaced all mine with FL. Saw about 33% savings on my bill. If you mix up the different colors (soft/blue) you can get some decent color balance resembling incandecent. Only thing that sucks is that you can't use a dimmer switch.

[bruin]

I've had a hard time convincing every one at home to use FL. But I did swap out all the 100w with 60w bulbs and replaced the out of the way spots with CF bulbs. The hard part is they like to have the lights on all day long. At least our home is small and the electric bill is around $150.

[BiGG]

Please don't feed the trolls!

Interesting MonteQuest! Yes, there is a lot of good information on this thread posted by myself and several intelligent others and there is no reason some should show up trolling with idiocies like frivolous minded mocking and such! I’m glad you are addressing this issue so the intelligent posters don’t have to dig through as much of their ridiculous crap.

Good Job! I’m on your side here and you can absolutely count on my continued support regarding this issue!

[Omnitir]

Pardon me but I have to make rant-noise about this. When I was a kid, televisions had an "off-on-volume" knob, and when it was "off," no power was used. You walked past the TV when you came in or left the living room, and turned it on or off as the case may be. You didn't turn it on or off from the couch.

A great point there, gg3. This is something I strongly agree with (and would like to rant a bit more about it, since it’s so important). Apart from energy conservation, which is something everyone will be forced to be concerned with soon, there is the safety issue. People don’t realise how dangerous electrical appliances can be when left on all the time.

I have a close relative who is a high positioned fireman, and he has always stressed the importance of turning off the TV properly (not standby mode) when sleeping and leaving the home, and also any other electrical appliance that can safely be turned off. He says there are an alarming number of deaths caused by over-heating appliances causing fires, which could have easily have been avoided.

For energy conservation, and also to ensure you live through the night, always properly turn off the television and the computer when finished using them, and unplug any adaptors (like phone chargers etc), which actually heat up even when not connected to an appliance. Unplugging the appliance from the wall is also a smart thing to do. It will save energy, and possibly your life and those you live with.


Standby mode is a symptom of the lazy consumerist cheap energy era, and will be a design soon forgotten, as energy conservation becomes an imperative.

[NOLA]

Could y'all post some information on the benefits of CF lighting over incandesent. I've going to try to convince my workplace to change to these but don't have any info concerning their benefits. What would be really useful is any information concerning their energy and money saving benefits, thats their main concern. Also anything about so called 'soft' CFs.
Thanks in advance

[MonteQuest]

Already here. We have a search feature.

http://peakoil.com/fortopic4622.html