Bucko's Bucks - Electricity Vampires

You can reduce your electricity bills by as much as 10% - simply by unplugging appliances or switching devices off at the power point they are connected to when not in use. It's good for your wallet and for our planet.

Standby, also known as phantom power loads, are responsible for an incredible amount of electricity consumption nationally. Practically every electronic device that you plug into a socket continues to consume electricity after you've switched the device off. Examples include phone charges, notebook power adaptors, microwave ovens, game consoles cd, video and dvd players

If an appliance or device has an adaptor, the easiest way to tell if it's still drawing power when the device is switched off is if the adaptor is warm.

While the amount of power being drawn by each of these appliances in standby mode usually isn't huge - anything from .5 - 5 watts per hour; when you consider the number of electronics devices in the average home these days and multiply that by the number of hours in a year; then multiply that by the number of households in your country - it really adds up. The average home in the USA consumers about 50 watts of standby power an hour. The annual collective standby power draw from households in the USA is around 8 gigawatts - equivalent to the electricity production of eight large power plants.

Science Scene - Electric Power, Just the Facts

So what are the facts when it comes to electrical power generation, and what is our energy mix? The markets in the United States have evolved naturally to the current generation portfolio:

49% Coal

22% Natural Gas

19% Nuclear

05% Renewable (excluding hydro)

03% Hydroelectric

Notice that "oil" does not make the list since it is a fraction of 1%.

When we talk about making our country becoming energy self-sufficient, the focus needs to be on vehicles and other users of petroleum products (plastic, asphalt, etc.), and not just electric power production.

When looking at renewable generation options, it becomes all about location, location, location. Geothermal in the Northwest, Solar in the Southwest, Wind in the plains, and Biomass in the Midwest.

As they say in Dragnet, just the Facts Ma'am.

November Wishes to You :o) - And Remember the Time Change

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween. Here in the Midwest, the weather cooperated both yesterday and today, with temperatures in the 60's.

Between some home projects, and a large stack of work-work, I could not sleep in past 7:15 this morning. So I turned on the coffee, headed out to get the paper, and was all caught up on news and Spotters by 9:00. I put in a couple of hours of work-work, then got on with the program.


I headed out to Lowes to get some electrical supplies, and the place was very busy. I hope that is a sign that after 4-6 weeks of hunkering down, that we are ready to start venturing out a bit and get our economy moving a bit. When I talked to the manager (who opened up a new lane), he indicated that it was very busy, and he was appreciative when I said "that is a good thing :o)"

The main plan today was to install some new outlets in the old garage for our home gym area. I turned off the breaker for the garage, but put on gloves just in case, and sure enough, when I cut into the wire for one of the outside lights, sparks flew. Drat, I did not do a thorough vetting of the candidates for energizing my garage campaign (sound familiar? :o). So, we powered down the house, I installed the new outlets, did a reconnoiter of the power source, and we are back up and running (and know which breaker to use next time :o). We took the opportunity to reset all of the clocks for the time change tonight/in the morning (0200 hours), so no-harm-no-foul. I also picked up two new oil-radiant heaters, and some new 150W equivalent CFL bulbs for the home gym garage area. Tomorrow, we will assemble the weight machine, and we will be up and running.

Currently watching ND, a 3-3 tie with Pitt, and Illinois starts their game at 3:30, so ta-ta for now!