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10) How do I go about saving energy at home?
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9) How can I benefit from energy saving appliances?
- If you want to save money you should consider how long you plan to keep the existing appliance vs the cost savings in reduced energy usage and also the possible savings in water efficiency. There is a magic number where the pay off in savings balances the replacement cost related to the left over useful service life of the appliance. You may also find a perfect storm of government incentives, discounts from resellers and other financial considerations.
- Bottom line, do the math, it is the only way to be sure!
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8) Can I build my own DIY solar panels?
- Yes you can. The big challenge here is that to build an efficient one, you need to buy the most expensive component, solar cells, and the money savings are significantly reduced after labor probably nill.
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7) Why don’t we see more wind turbines installed?
- Wind turbines require special conditions to be efficient enough to pay for themselves. A home sized system would need to be placed high in the air and only be useful in certain areas of the country. Large installations suffer from the same challenges and also issues of scale. Plus large wind turbine installations tend to be cost effective far away from cities, where the power is needed. Transmitting the electricity from remote areas drives the cost way up.
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6) Who was Nicola Tesla?
- Nicola Tesla was one of the two driving forces of AC power industrialization in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. He and George Westinghouse battled Thomas Edison to deploy AC power vs Edison’s DC power grid solution. Tesla was primarily the inventor and Westinghouse used Tesla’s patents to bring AC out on top.
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5) Why are electric hybrids like the Chevy volt the coming thing?
- Here is the problem: Since the beginning we have been asking the internal combustion engine to run at different RPM’s and load levels and change between them in an instant by the press of the accelerator. The compromises we made to do that resulted in an engine that was most efficient at higher RPM’s but would do everything we asked of it at a cost we could all cope with. The real strong suit of this engine was how easy it was to store the fuel; gasoline is a nice mix of high energy by volume and mass. Relatively easy to store and move around. Just pump it into the tank. Just like taking a drink of water.
- The series hybrid like the Chevy Volt uses an electric motor to address our varying needs from slow speeds, high performance, and everything in-between. It does this much more efficiently than the internal combustion engine. The down side is that the energy requires a lot more room to store and is very heavy. Not the electricity, but the batteries.
- Now here is the interesting part. What if we made a gas engine that always ran at the same RPM’s? Couldn’t we optimize it to be its most efficient? Oh yes, and not only that, also lighter with less emissions, smaller etc… So that is what we did. We now have two engines in a car, one to drive the wheels and the other to make electricity if we run the batteries down. We don't need to carry nearly as much gas in the arrangement and the milage is better!
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4) What is the Kill A Watt and why do I need one?
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3) How will full spectrum lights improve my life?
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2) What is the best energy saving light bulb?
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1) Does reducing electricity usage affect oil prices?
Not so much
US electricity is primarily generated by burning coal and a small amount is generated by nuclear plants and another small percentage by renewables. We are also aware of a lot more coal than we are oil so we are expected to run out of oil long before we run out of coal. The fact is, if clean coal electricity generation works, we should see it continue to be used for some time. An economist might tell you that coal generated electricity is substitute energy generated by burning oil.
- Here is an interesting side note. Did you know that electricity prices to consumers started at about 24 cents a kilowatt hour back when Edison first started out? Our understanding is that the price dropped down to about 2 cents per kilowatt as the product became more main stream. However, the price of electricity has moved from 2 cents to a US average of about 10 cents in 100 years. Compare that to just about anything else you purchase today…
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How Much Is the United States Worth?
- In yet another effort to avoid paying massive reparations due after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico BP announced a new plan to purchase the United States. The plan incorporates a group of inventors who intend to part out the United States as follows:
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- France has offered a substantial investment for complete ownership of Jerry Lewis. Lewis has made a counter offer hocking his massive estate in an effort to purchase France.
- Israel put in a claim for New York stating long standing occupation of the area.
- An unnamed German investor has offered a significant sum for the DNA of Dick Clark.
- Muslims from around the world have offered to purchase every building with windows facing Mecca.
- Several of the countries on the continent of Africa (no Africa is NOT a country…) have pooled their resources and offered thousands of sheep, cows, and goats all with very difficult to pronounce names in return "for all those cute white people.”
- Cubans lowballed a bid for Florida.
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Uncontrollable Texans
- BP stated that Texas would not be included in bidding due to trouble controlling Texans.
- New Hampshire and other states would come under the rule of their name sake British noble families.
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al-Qaeda Bids for Virgins
- al-Qaeda put in a bid for any existing virgins for marketing purposes.
- New Zealand offered to buy Mexico. When told Mexico was not part of the U.S., the quick New Zealanders indicated that New Mexico would do just fine.
- Three unnamed sheiks have pooled resources to purchase the Nevada desert to use as additional parking for their numerous superfluous Mercedes Benz automobiles.
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A Bidding War Between America and the Chinese?
- The plan has also resulted in a bidding war between the American Indians and the Chinese. The Indians have offed to cut for it. The Chinese have engaged one billion of their countries populous in calculating the odds of them winning based on weather conditions, location, time of day, and over 50,000 other variables.
- Photo by Lisa Chamberlain http://www.flickr.com/photos/polis/47814441 /
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