Did you know?

Did you know:

The amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface is 6,000 times the amount of energy used by all human beings worldwide. The total amount of fossil fuel used by humans since the start of civilization is equivalent to less than 30 days of sunshine.
There are two types of energy:

All the renewable sources of energy are fairly non-polluting and considered clean.

The developed countries have about 20 % of the world population and use 60% of the world’s energy.

Wind turbines

one 2 MW wind turbine on a good location can cover the electricity consumption for 2000 households per year

during its life time a wind turbine delivers 80 times more energy than is used in its production, maintenance and scrapping.
A modern wind turbine is designed to run continuously for over 20 years, or for 120,000 hours. By comparison, the design life time of a car engine is 20 times less at only 4,000 to 6,000 hours.
In the last 20 years, the power production of wind turbines has increased by a factor of 100, while the costs of generating electricity from the wind has fallen by 80%.
Wind is the fastest growing energy source worldwide, and has been for over a decade with an annual growth rate of 30%.

Transportation

About 27 percent of the energy Americans use goes to transporting people and goods from one place to another.
If all the cars in the United States were lined up bumper to bumper, they would reach from the earth to the moon and back! The amount of fuel consumed in these vehicles each year is enough to fill a swimming pool as big as a football field that is 40 miles deep!

Energy efficiency

you can reduce your energy bill by about 30% by purchasing energy efficient products for your home?
Buying energy efficient equipment helps clean the air by reducing carbon dioxide emissions
The average American household spends $1,284 on energy costs (heat/cooling, appliances, lighting, water heating)
The average American household would save about $400 if they used energy efficient products.
Saving energy helps to slow global warming. Saving energy also helps solve other environmental problems like acid rain and smog.

Recycling

Recycling aluminium uses 95% less energy than making it from raw ore, creates 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution
Using recycled material to produce new plastics uses 2/3 of the energy required to manufacture it from raw materials
plastics require 100 to 400 years to breakdown at the landfill
1 ton of paper used for recycling saves :

Computers

Inkjets use 1/5 the energy of laser printers
Laptops can use 90% less energy than desktops
Flat-panel screens use 1/3 the energy of conventional monitors
The total demand for electricity from personal computers on the internet amounts to 8% of the U.S. electrical supply.
Monitors are big energy consumers, and should be set to a low-power “sleep” mode or turned off when inactive.

Turn off computer monitors and hard drives when not in use. Set your computer monitor to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity.
Choose the smallest computer monitor that will meet your needs. The bigger the monitor, the more energy it uses. For example, a 17-inch monitor consumes approximately 35 percent more electricity than a 14-inch monitor.
A laser printer draws over 300 watts of power
Turning off computer equipment increases system life
Dark colored desktop background for screen displays save up to 20% more energy than light colors.
Implement paper-reducing strategies such as double-sided printing, and using email instead of sending memos and faxes. Saving paper saves energy because it takes 10 times more energy to manufacture a piece of paper than it does to put an image on it.
A copier could be the highest energy user in your home office, especially if you leave it on all day.
When one billion people are accessing the internet, as is projected, the required electricity will be equal to total current capacity of U.S. electric power production.

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Are you:

Wondering about how the high the cost of gas?

Wondering why your heating bill has tripled in the past few years?

Wondering about how long we can continue to consume energy as we have in the past?

General household and Classroom

Use stairs instead of elevators when feasible
Unplug appliances that are not being used. Most idle appliances -- TVs, VCRs, CD players, cassette decks, cordless phones, microwaves -- continue to consume energy when switched off and account for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption.
Run only full loads of laundry.
Turn off lights when no one is in the room. Ten percent of the average home's electricity costs can be controlled with the flip of a switch.
Close blinds (and windows) after sunset in the winter to keep in heat. Leave them open during summer days instead of turning on extra lights.
Compact fluorescent lights use 75% less energy then incandescent lights.
Take advantage of natural light

Consider using small appliances such as microwaves or toaster ovens to cook or re-heat foods. These appliances use up to 50 percent less energy than conventional ovens.
When using the oven, turn on oven light to check food and keep pre-heating to a minimum. Opening the oven door loses about 20 percent of the heat.
Did you know that if you overfill your refrigerator, it will use up more energy than if you overfilled your freezer? The overfilled refrigerator blocks air circulation, which can make the motor work harder, but the overfilled freezer will perform better than an empty one.
Before you put leftovers in the fridge, you might want to let the hot food cool down first. In doing so, you'll prevent your refrigerator from working extra hard and using valuable electricity.
Did you know that cooking on a barbeque will save energy during hot weather, as compared to, indoor conventional cooking? This is because indoor cooking heats up the air in your home and potentially increases your air conditioning needs.

Coal

The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal. It has coal resources for the next 250 years at present use.
Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels
Nine of every ten tons of coal used in the US are used for electricity generation.
about 2/3 of the energy in coal is used up to make electricity, or becomes waste heat, and only 1/3 winds up being delivered to users as electricity.
Much of the ‘waste heat” is air, land and water pollution.
It takes one pound of coal to produce 1.25 kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to light one 100 watt lightbulb for 10 hours.

A typical computer spread with internet access requires about 1,000 watts of power.
A lump of coal is burned every time a book is ordered on-line.
It takes about a pound of coal to create, package, store and move 2 megabytes of data.
The average internet user (12 hours per week) uses over 300 pounds of coal annually for this purpose.