For many people, electricity is a "black box" commodity. In other words, there is little consumer understanding beyond the check that is written each month and the switches employed to use it.
I just stumbled onto this site and thought a few of DU's might have an interest in improving their skills as consumers of electricity. The site creator provides his own introduction, which I've copied below. - K
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/Welcome! I've always hated "How-To" guides which don't explain why a certain tip works, or how well it works. Sometimes a topic is just as mysterious after you read the guide.
My guide is different. I explain exactly what a kilowatt hour is and how much you pay for one. And I show you how to calculate exactly how much electricity your household appliances use, so you know which items are guzzling the most juice (and which ones are the best targets for savings). You'll also learn exactly how to read your electric meter, if you like. (Find that on any other website.) And I not only give you meaningful tips for slashing your electricity consumption, I give you the tools to figure out exactly how much you're saving as well. Finally, I've answered countless questions from readers about saving electricity. If you have a question, it's probably answered here already.
Saving electricity doesn't just save money, it also saves the planet. This is news to a lot of people. After all, when you plug something into the wall, it seems clean enough -- you don't see or smell any pollution, like you do with your car. But the pollution is there -- it just happens at the power plant. Most electricity is generated by burning coal and running nuclear power plants. Every time you turn on the lights, you create a little pollution. (See the sidebar.) So saving electricity doesn't just put money in your pocket, it helps keep the air and water clean, too.
In fact, the legendary James Hansen, one of the first scientists to sound the alarm about global warming way back in the 80's, recently said that the real key to preventing climate change is reducing home energy use. That's because, as he says, we can't stop the oil from being burned for transport, since if we don't use it, another country will. But we can certainly stop burning our coal. And the quickest way to reduce coal emissions by 50%, is to reduce our electricity consumption by 50%.
Note also that as the age of oil is coming to a close (we've already used more than half of the oil that exists on the planet), our energy appetite puts more pressure for utilities to build dangerous nuclear power plants.
Thinking about going solar? Solar is indeed now affordable in many cases. My concern about this is that, just like with cars, people are looking for an alternative fuel source so they can continue blissfully using ridiculous amounts of energy. I would prefer that we all first stop consuming so freaking much!
In reality, conservation is pretty easy; the problem is that most people don't want to. That's why people bought SUV's in droves. (Yes, the price of gas used to be lower, but the point is, even then, people were still buying the most wasteful vehicles available to them. The fact that they used to be affordable is fairly irrelevant.) When I go to the gym, I see that everyone has turned on the little TV attached to the treadmill or exercycle. I always go and turn them all off, but probably 90% of the people who use those machines again will turn the TV back on and leave it on when they leave. That's an easy way to see why we've got a problem. If most people won't do an easy thing, like turning off a TV when they're not using it, how can we expect them to do things that actually require a tiny amount of effort?
But you're here, you're reading this, so hopefully you're willing to make some modest changes. So good for you! If you're serious about saving energy, then there's no better place to find out about it than here. And if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, you'll also want to look into eating less meat and driving less.
I hope you find this website useful. Happy savings!
-- Michael Bluejay
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/
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