For those of us with children, "don't forget to turn out the lights" is a normal echo heard daily throughout the home almost like a broken record. For most of us here in the U.S., it is our way of reminding our children that energy today costs money, maybe a little too much.
It is good to be conscious about our daily use of the power we use, whether it be in the home or the gasoline we put in our automobile's gas tank. As far as energy saving programs in the home, one just has to change all the power hungry incandescent lamps that are easily accessible with the latest CFL screw in type fluorescent lamps, because the CFL uses about 4 times less energy than the standard incandescent. Another way to save energy in the home is to turn down the thermostat two or three degrees in each zonal area. Of course, the way to compensate for the temperature adjustment is to increase the insulation in the attic or crawl space. You might even be able to leave the thermostat setting at the original temperature and still save the extra energy by just adding the extra insulation. Each of us has some control on our own dwelling, but what about the city or town you live in ?
All of us, many times have stopped at a traffic intersection with multiple red, green and yellow lights. We may not give it any notice or thought as we transit, but just before the turn of the 21st century, the lamps used were between 90 and 120 watts. Since then, they have slowly been replaced with a new lighting source called the LED lamp cluster. These new lamps now use as little as 1/10 the original power consumed by the incandescent lamp. That's like cutting your heating costs of $ 1,000. a month down to $ 100. per month...a substantial savings.The traffic lighting intersections throughout the U.S. are still in the process of being retrofitted with these new LED lamps. Before this major change in our traffic lighting system, we were consuming hundreds of millions of watts of power and our cities and towns were spending millions in energy costs...being passed on to the consumer as is the case with all our nation's services. We have been paying for this energy waste for decades.
Even The European Is Aware...
It is said that when an american tourist leaves their hotel at sign out, the lights are usually left on, something that would annoy the hotel owners, since they are left with the cost. It is not as though this is a standard american practice, but it is certainly noticed by the hotel owners. The average european is generally more energy conscious, we are told. Here in the U.S., the latest trend is that many college and university students are being given..for free, brand new CFL replacement lamps for their halogen light bulbs because some of the students would leave them on when they went out to visit a friend, or even for the weekend. There is an inherent danger using the halogen because they burn very hot, besides being power hungry and are a fire danger when left on and unattended.
It seems that the average american, though surely not the majority are not very "energy consumption" conscious. Being generally more affluent than the average european, we probably just figure, I have the money, why not spend it. The autos we drive are less gasoline efficient, something we are slowly beginning to change in our ways with the looming realities of Global Warming, it may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
