The other thing I am doing today is making birthday cards for July with recycled paper, some recycled embellishments, photos I printed myself, and ribbons from gifts and stuff. Reduce, reuse, recycle, re-purpose. Think about a second use for something before you throw it in the landfill as garbage. Have a great 4th and keep all your fingers and toes.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Friday before 4th of July weekend
First off, if you are going away for more than a couple of days, it pays to turn off your heat, turn off all your computer related items, unplug all your entertainment system gismos (it only takes 30-45 minutes to re-populate your cable box, and turn your water heater to pilot, if it might try to heat water while you are gone (this is because your water heater looses heat through the connections just sitting there), The other thing you can do is buy a smart plug strip that keeps the cable box on if you must, and turns everything off. The cable box sucks LOTS of energy, even if they tell you it doesn't. Phantom Loads! You can cut your bill by at least 10%.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Blogging doesn't have to be a job!
Well, I started this blog last year, only had one post, so this year..I am going to do it! I Twitter and Facebook and e-mail. But, sometimes there is not enough room to say what I want So I hope you are ready out there to follow my little bit longer ramblings!
First off, my passion is SAVING ENERGY, but I have lots of other passions too, like photography and traveling, beautiful sunsets and reading books....lots of books. So you really never know what you might read here, but I will try to focus on Energy related things.
Today's topic, What don't they get about Demand Side Energy? For those of you that don't know what I am taking about it is the energy users: everybody out there in the world. Everyone uses energy, for something, even the simplist use of fire for cooking or keeping warm is using a resource (in this instance wood, coal, gas, dung, etc). I am a little more sophisticated than that, I'm talking about reducing your energy costs by 25%, your electricity, your gas bill, your heating/ac bill. Back in the 70's and 80's we called it 'Energy Conservation'...but that was before we started to think about our lives in context of everything around us: water, food, waste, garbage, electricity, gas, coal and our friend oil. Now we call it 'Resource Conservation' because we need to conserve all our natural resources.
I am not your typical tree hugger, I have been a mass consumer for a great majority of my life, but as I get older, I realize that I certainly have wasted a lot of my money on junk, energy to heat my house, gas for our many cars. With that wasted money, I could have been retired to my nice little cabin by Puget Sound a lot sooner than I am going to be able to now.
I have attended 2 conferences (AEE West Coast Energy Congress and PNW Clean Tech Summit at Satsop) in the past two weeks and much of what was talked about was getting a handle on how much energy buildings were using and cutting down on the waste. Nobody likes to waste money, it is too hard to come by these days and if you are wasting energy, you are wasting money.
How do we co that? First off we have to figure out where the enery is used, then plot a strategy to stop wasting it. I will be blogging on the new and exciting things that I learn about as well as the old tried and true methods. And I will tell you about the energy classes that I teach at Edmonds Community College, I have to raise up some new energy Bozos to take my place so that I can retire!
First off, my passion is SAVING ENERGY, but I have lots of other passions too, like photography and traveling, beautiful sunsets and reading books....lots of books. So you really never know what you might read here, but I will try to focus on Energy related things.
Today's topic, What don't they get about Demand Side Energy? For those of you that don't know what I am taking about it is the energy users: everybody out there in the world. Everyone uses energy, for something, even the simplist use of fire for cooking or keeping warm is using a resource (in this instance wood, coal, gas, dung, etc). I am a little more sophisticated than that, I'm talking about reducing your energy costs by 25%, your electricity, your gas bill, your heating/ac bill. Back in the 70's and 80's we called it 'Energy Conservation'...but that was before we started to think about our lives in context of everything around us: water, food, waste, garbage, electricity, gas, coal and our friend oil. Now we call it 'Resource Conservation' because we need to conserve all our natural resources.
I am not your typical tree hugger, I have been a mass consumer for a great majority of my life, but as I get older, I realize that I certainly have wasted a lot of my money on junk, energy to heat my house, gas for our many cars. With that wasted money, I could have been retired to my nice little cabin by Puget Sound a lot sooner than I am going to be able to now.
I have attended 2 conferences (AEE West Coast Energy Congress and PNW Clean Tech Summit at Satsop) in the past two weeks and much of what was talked about was getting a handle on how much energy buildings were using and cutting down on the waste. Nobody likes to waste money, it is too hard to come by these days and if you are wasting energy, you are wasting money.
How do we co that? First off we have to figure out where the enery is used, then plot a strategy to stop wasting it. I will be blogging on the new and exciting things that I learn about as well as the old tried and true methods. And I will tell you about the energy classes that I teach at Edmonds Community College, I have to raise up some new energy Bozos to take my place so that I can retire!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
First Blog
Good Morning Blogging World! I love to write, so I named my blog a Litany, but it has to be short so Laconic. Today is already warm, summer has come to Washington. Thanks!
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