Its Time We Talked About the Efficiency Option… |
3rd July 2008
Last week we talked about the nuclear option as a way of dealing with the energy problem. While the poll showed broad support for the nuclear option, the reasoning was not reflected in the comment section. In the end, their were enough strong arguments against increasing nuclear generation to sway me from my initial leanings. Based on the success of that discussion, there are many other options that we will investigate in the future, but the one that stuck out in my mind the largest came from the most excellent Jay Stevens:
The quickest, cheapest, and most effective way to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels is efficiency. That is, $100 billion spent on upgrading home insulation and energy efficient appliances would save more energy than what the same amount of money invested in a nuclear plant could produce.
Well, yeah. Of course. It makes a lot of sense. Of all the things that we can do to sway energy policy, personal efficiency is the only one that we can individually effect. While we must travel down the path of renewables and alternatives, efficiency is the one thing that we can start working on right now.
It is easy to talk that talk, but since Jay made that comment, I have come to realize that I am not walking that walk. II have come to the realization that I must put my actions where my mouth is, and there is no time like the present. As such, I have decided to lower my families consumption and waste any way that I can. I hope to half our footprint in the next year, and I have quiet a few ideas on how to do that. Here are the main points:
- Drastically reduce our energy consumption (gasoline, electricity and natural gas)
- Drastically reduce our waste
Drastically reducing our waste means that we will avoid items with excessive packaging (AKA cheap plastic crap) which has a great hidden effect, for every pound of waste you see from a product, many more pounds of waste went were generated before the product ever made it to the shelf. Additionally, consider the energy used in shipping and production! The effects are far reaching.
I actually have quiet a few ideas on how to begin, and indeed I have already started this past week. I will be describing and quantifying these efforts at my personal blog The Wrong Dog’s Life Chest. Please drop in and check it out, see if any of the ideas can be applied to your own life.
Shane- I’m glad you mentioned the nuclear option post. I too started out undecided, and was swayed to “no” by the strength of the arguments.
I’m looking forward to seeing your suggestions for personal efficiency and conservation. Hopefully there will be things I can implement into my own lifestyle.
I’m a serious offender when it comes to electricity (especially keeping my a/c so cold that I wear sweatshirts inside). I will make a concerted effort to change my habits in this area.
I only have a few moments before I have to leave for work, but kudos to you for this series of posts. Good stuff. As to your point about reducing waste there are three ‘rules’ I follow as much as I possibly can. Buy less, buy local, and buy used. All three can have a tremendous impact in terms of money spent, resources used, and waste generated.
I got some interesting news at work today. The Board of Directors is seriously considering moving us to a 4-day work week. This will save them $$ on what it takes to keep our building running for an extra day, and it will save the employees $$ on gas as most of us live 40+ minutes away from work.
I wonder if this will become a National trend as gas prices go up.