ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND YOU by Kenneth Urquhart

Energy is something you don’t feel or touch or weight or taste or smell, but you use it all the time. When you eat your food, your body changes the energy in the food into energy the body needs so you can walk, run, throw things, kick things, make your bicycle move, do your homework, put your hand up in class. Your energy keeps you warm in winter. When your body has used up its store of energy it makes you hungry or tired. Energy isn’t just in your body. Energy comes from the sun, for example. Daylight is energy from the sun. The warmth you feel in the sun is another kind of sun energy. The wind is air moving quickly because the sun has made one part of the world hotter than another.

Plants use the sun’s energy to help them grow, and they pass that energy on to you when you eat them or when you eat meat from animals that ate plants.

Now, in our homes we burn natural gas or oil for hot water, cooking, or heating. We use electricity to run many appliances. These fuels came from plants that lived millions of years ago, were buried and cooked in the heat of the earth. As they cooked, they changed into deposits of coal, natural gas, and oil, and a lot of their sun energy stayed in the deposits. We use that energy to make the electricity that comes into our houses, and we use the gas and oil all the time at home and at school and at work.

Every time we use some of these old fuels, a bit more of the Earth’s store of captured sun energy has gone forever. Although it takes us very little time to use that energy, it takes such a long time to make it in the ground, we can’t replace it any time soon.

Every time you buy something that has come to the store near you on a truck and perhaps by rail or plane from far away, more of Earth’s store of energy has gone forever. That store gets smaller every day. When you are grown up and have children of your own, they might not have enough stored sun energy to help them live their lives.

What can you do about this? You can use ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, which is energy taken directly from the sun (like solar energy) or from energy created by the sun (like wind power). You can use old sun-energy EFFICIENTLY. “Efficiently” means not wasting, using carefully, making the most of, something. If you turn a light off when it’s not needed, or the tv, or a computer, and when you go for alternative energy, you’re using energy efficiently. Help make sure your children have the energy they will need!

You can find LOTS of information and ideas if you google “Energy Efficiency KidsEducation” and “Alternative Energy Kids Education.” Have fun! Be Energy Efficient!

by Kenneth Urquhart

Please contact the author

KENNETH URQUHART <urq@verizon.net>

or Ilana Greene at igreene@fas.harvard.edu

Kids Have More Energy by Diane Bliss

Let’s face it: kids have more energy than older folks. If you’ve ever spent time with a seven-year-old, you know what I’m talking about. They’re just brimming with energy — twisting and turning and tumbling and talking — my, how they can talk! Yakkety, yak, yak, yak…So here’s a great idea: how about harnessing all this EXCESS energy and putting these active young minds to good use while helping save the planet?

The U.S. Department of Energy and the Ad Council have partnered in “What’s Your Excuse?” It’s an educational TV campaign aimed at kids ages 8-16 showing how easy it is to make energy-saving changes at home and encouraging kids to learn more, then share what they know with the adults in the household to help save money and energy while doing good things for Mother Earth.

You’ve probably seen one of the commercials. My favorite is with the boy about age ten who’s tell his friend girl of the same age that power adapters for cell phones use energy even when the phone isn’t plugged in. She says, “I don’t have a cell phone,” and then you hear her cell phone ringing in the background and she has to cop to the fact that not only does she have a cell phone but that her power adapter is plugged into the wall unused right behind her! Classic since we can all remember a time when we’ve said, “Oh, no, I’d *never* do that,” but our fingers are firmly crossed behind our backs since we know we’re not being totally honest with ourselves or the Universe.

Energy Circle has a great project for kids called “Moolah Maker” that shows kids how they can work with their parents to save energy by going over the family’s energy bill each month and then the kids earn moolah when they help decrease the bill. Here’s the link to their website for more info:

http://fivepercent.us/2009/08/04/a-fun-incentive-for-your-kids-to-save-energy-moolah-maker/You

And of course, PowerDown is encouraging kids to participate in our Compete for Energy Efficiency group at Facebook.com because you never know where the winning idea will come from. There are no age restrictions for the contest and everyone knows that great things come in small packages.

To email Editor-in-Chief & Contributor Diane Bliss: dblissinkc “at” gmail.com

To email iPowerDown: igreene “at” fas.harvard.edu

Small Steps by Marvin Gayle

In today’s economy, the general idea of conservation has new meanings; both for the financially shrewd as well as the environmentally conscious. For one reason or another people are conserving both money and energy, why is this so? Are we all suddenly energy conscious or is there an alternate explanation? Could it be the case that money is a scarce commodity during an economic recession; and tough financial times dictate that we do more with less—even less energy?

We have been in an energy slide long before the current economic realities. Isn’t it ironic; how our urgent reaction to this financial situation and our response to the ongoing energy crisis are significantly different? Maybe the gradual depletion of our natural resources is not as obvious as the balance in our checking accounts. While it may not be immediately recognized, a depletion of our energy is synonymous with a depletion of our money. Energy costs money. If we save energy, we will save money—which will further help to save the environment. Buying into the idea of saving energy will result in two positive effects at no additional cost.

One of our main goals at iPowerDown is to bring across the fact that “powering down” is not as difficult as it may seem; in some cases, it may even be easier. While the incremental savings from cutting back may seem imperceptible at first; over time, our collective efforts will start to accumulate exponentially. The hardest part about “powering down” is not the physical act of changing our daily habits. The real challenge comes when we try to convince ourselves that small steps make significant differences. iPowerDown is one of the many “small steps” that will result in a giant leap to a more energy efficient way of life—for all.

Edited by Diane Bliss, Editor-in-Chief for iPowerDown

To email author Marvin Gayle: gaylemarvin “at” gmail.com

To email editor Diane Bliss: dblissinkc “at” gmail.com

To email iPowerDown: igreene “at” fas.harvard.edu

Life is Hectic by Diane Bliss

Life is hectic.  We’re all juggling so many things on our ToDo lists — work, friends, family, errands, school, minor emergencies, causes and volunteer work –  it seems we don’t have the time or the energy to add a single thing or our minds will implode from ToDo overload.  But think about this:  do you have just THREE MINUTES to spare?  Not  an hour or two, but just three minutes you can invest each day to do something you believe in and know is important for the future of our planet?

Three minutes isn’t much.  It’s about as long as it takes to pop a bag of popcorn in the microwave or the amount of time you spend waiting in line at your favorite fast food place during the lunch rush.   And that’s about how long it would take each morning to do a quick circuit of your home or apartment and unplug any unused power adapters, appliances, clocks or other devices that waste energy while you’re not home.

“What good would that do?” you might say.  “That’s just pennies a day.  It won’t amount to anything.  Talk about a waste of time and energy.”  But little things DO add up.

In fact, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, American households waste about 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.  Your fancy coffee maker with the clock and auto-on function?  Wasted energy.  Your cell phone chargers — one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen, both plugged in?  Wasted energy.  By leaving unused electronic devices and power adapters plugged in when no one is home, Americans waste almost $6 billion a year in phantom electricity.

And the cost isn’t just financial.  This unneeded and unused electricity contributes to global warmingand the depletion of the ozone layer by sending more 87 billion pounds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

So what can you do?  Invest just $20 in three power strips, one strip for each group of electronic devices in the three main rooms of your home: the living room,bedroom, and kitchen.  In each room, make sure all the energy-sapping appliances that are usually left on during the day are now plugged in to that power strip and that it’s in an easy-to-reach spot. Then add one little ToDo to your morning routine.  After you’re ready for work but before you leave for the day, make a quick circuit of your home and flip the switch OFF on each of the three power strips:  one, two, three.

It won’t take more than three minutes each day.  In fact, once you make it part of your morning routine, you may find it takes less than that.  Finished in the bedroom?  Flip the switch as you head for the kitchen.  Passing through the living room on the way to the kitchen? Flip the switch. As you’re grabbing your keys to head out the door, check the kitchen and flip the switch.  Easy-peasy.  One, two, three.

Think about this.  The energy companies have no incentive to encourage us to spend less money on their products because that means less profit for them.  And politicians and technocrats depend on the campaign contributions of those same energy companies to get elected, so how likely is it that we’ll see changes to legislation that would reduce energy consumption?  We don’t need that anyway.

Americans are smart, creative and innovative and we don’t wait around for “experts” to tell us what to do and how to do it.  That’s why Harvard/MIT start-up iPowerDown came up with the quintessential American idea: let’s get real people involved and challenge all of America by having a contest to see who can come up with the best ideas for saving energy.  Get the whole country involved in the discussion and may the best ideas win.  To join in, go to our Facebook page, Compete for Energy Efficiency and put in your two cents.  No major overhaul, no reinvention.  Baby steps.  Because little changes add up to big savings.

please contact the author Diane Bliss : dblissinkc “at” gmail.com

please contact iPowerDown :  igreene “at” fas.harvard.edu

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