Belkin's Answer to the Abandoned Charger

Don't let this happen to you!

Lonely Chargers Looking for a Nice Phone

Does this scene exist in your home? Be honest! My guess is "yes" and you're not alone as according to the Consumer Electronics Association only about a third of all consumers always unplug and as much as 61% or people sometimes or always neglect to unplug the charger after they disconnect a charged device. Fear not! Belkin has come to rescue your bank account with the Conserve Valet Smart USB Charging Station.


Here is what it looks like and a short video clip on how it works.

Belkin Valet Video Link

The purpose of this product is to allow you to charge your mobile devices (cellphone, smartphones, cameras, anything that is able to charge via USB) without racking up lots of standby (vampire) power usage, but more on that in a moment. 


The first detail I noticed about the Belkin Valet was the packaging, or I should say the lack of it. As a self proclaimed geek I've purchased a lot of electronics in my life.  More recently, many of those products claim to have some kind of environmentally friendly or "green" attribute.  Some of those claims are true and some are not, but even for the ones that can legitimately claim environmental benefit my first perception of the product comes, not from the claims made, but from the packaging.  I despise those bubble packed clam shell things that a lot of devices are sold in these days.  Nothing tells me you're not serious about your environmental claims quicker that an oversized, cardboard and plastic mound of garbage held together with twist ties.  Honestly all of this material is a cost that product manufacturers externalize onto consumers because we have to pay (through municiple taxes and waste hauling fees) to recycle and/or throw that mess away! You're also paying some incremental cost to have all of the packaging material included with the product.


Anyway, enough with the rant. My point is that far too often all that additional packaging is not necessary and Belkin, with it's Conserve series of products provides us with excellent examples of what good, responsible packaging should look like. See here (tomatoes sold seperately)-->


Look! No ridiculous extra plastic bags. No unnecessary plastic covering and only one (yes one) twist tie.  The whole package unfolds into one beautifully flat piece of cardboard just itching to be recycled.  The only missing piece is that I don't see an FSC certification label on the package, but we'll let that slide for now.  All-in-all a great job by the packaging engineers at Belkin for considering this often overlooked, but glaringly visible detail!


OK, one additional quick rant related to where I bought this device.  Unfortunately, Best Buy, where I normally buy all of my electronic devices did not have the Valet stocked at any of the 3 stores that I visited in my area, so I had to order it, which I did from the store.  While walking through a local Sears earlier in the week I noticed that their electronics department carried both the Valet, and a power metering device similar to the Kill-A-Watt that I previously reviewed and all of the other products in the Belkin Conserve line.  Bad Best Buy! Good Sears!


So I know you're thinking, blah, blah, blah... enough about the packaging and the responsible product offerings of retail establishments already!  Does the thing actually work as advertised?  Well in a word, "yes," and let's take a look at my little field test. 


As shown in the video posted above, essentially you plug the USB cord that came with your handheld device into one of the four USB slots located on the Valet. The Valet charges the connected devices and returns to a zero energy state within 4 hours or automatically turns itself off if charging devices are removed from their chargers.  Let's see the details...


First, I plugged in a power strip to my Kill-A-Watt to setup the test and was a bit surprise.  This old power strip actually consumed a small amount of electricity (0.4 of a watt) all the time, so I had to subtract this amount from each of the next few tests (keep that in mind when you see the number on the Kill-A-Watt screen).

Then I looked at home much energy a generic LG charger that I regularly use to charge my Motorolla Droid 2.  Turns out it only uses about 0.1 of a watt.

I then separately tested the charger for my wife's iPhone (yes I do this kind of stuff in my free time).  It uses 0.2 of a watt.

I then plugged both chargers in and tested the amount that both used together. 0.4 (from the power strip) + 0.1 (from the LG charger) + 0.2 (from the iPhone charger) = 0.7 of a watt as expected.

Next I checked the Belkin Valet and as advertised, it does not consume any electricity in standby mode.

Next I checked the consumption of the two chargers with both phones plugged, which added up to 12.1 watts.

Lastly, I checked the consumption of the Valet with the two phones connected and charging and found that it was consuming only 10.3 watts, which I believe could extended the needed charging time slightly, but given that the valet turns itself off to a zero energy state after the phones are charged, there is some savings there that would make up for the additional time.

I've used the Belkin Valet for a few weeks now.  Typically my wife and I will plug our phones into it at night and allow them to charge.  In the morning both phones are charged and the Valet isn't pulling any electricity.


Overall I recommend this device. The benefit of the valet is that it's an aesthetically attractive solution that allows you to clean up the mess of cables around your phones/handhelds while saving you some money in wasted energy.  I would like to point out, however, that you could probably achieve the same effect with a timer such as this one, which I use to charge my laptop only during certain periods of time since the charger uses 80 watts, or do what I typically do and charge you phone in your car. My commute is long enough that I can typically charge the phone to the point where it lasts me all day.  A device like a phone charger is not going to impact your fuel economy and your car's alternator is generating the power anyway, so why not use it.


Belkin's Conserve line also includes a power strip with a master control slot that cuts standby power and is very similar to the 360 Electronics and Rocketfish strips that I previously reviewed.  Check them all out at a Sears (and other stores) near you.


Dennis

My Whole House Fan

With the temperate weather we've had the last few days we've been able to turn off the air conditioner in our home and enjoy the cool nights.  What's made this even easier while still being able to maintain a certain comfort level in our home is that we have a whole house fan.

This past spring and into the early summer the area that I live in (Lancaster County, PA) experienced many days where the daytime temperatures were in the 80s and the nights in the 50s and 60s.  My home is well insulated, so even with the windows open, it is somewhat difficult to change the temperature inside the home drastically without fans or other devices pulling outside air in. Since our air conditioner uses approximately 3,000 to 3,500 watts of electricity when it's running and is by far our largest electricity consumer, we try not to turn it on until temperatures become unbearable.  I also want to mention that our trigger for turning the AC on is somewhat heavy since we have two small children and my wife and my sleep quality is directly correlated to their sleep quality.

So, after some research we decided that we were going to install a whole house fan to help push the hot air out of our home and pull cold air in at night and early in the morning.  One concern with any penetration that you make in your home is that you will also be disturbing the building envelope and the insulation that helps create that envelope.  Whole house fans are usually placed through the most critical area of the building envelope, that being your attic, so by adding something that might give you some relief in temperate parts of the year, you could also be creating a gaping hole that will allow very cold air to infiltrate during very cold portions of the year and cause you to have to spend more money to heat your home. If you're able to access the attic side of a whole house fan and are able to insulate above it effectively, this may not be an issue for you.  For me, accessing my attic is very difficult, and I'm not confident in my motivation to actually climb up there, through the loose fill insulation and place insulation on top of the fan in the winter months.

So, I purchased a fan that has remote control doors that are insulated to the same R-value (R-38) as the rest of my attic. When the fan turns on, the doors open. When the fan is turned off, the doors close and maintain the building envelope.

The fan that I purchased is the Tamarak HV1600 whole house fan. I installed it myself with the help of my neighbor (Rick), which was super easy since it's already sized to fit between the attic floor joists, which are 24" on center.  I only had to add framing to two sides, an electrical outlet to plug the fan in, and some self adhering weather seal between the body of the fan and the floor joists.  With everything in place I cut through the drywall, put the fan in place, plugged it in, installed the included fan cover and that was it.

Tamarak HV1600 w/R38 Insulated Doors

The HV1600 is quite and is very effective at cooling my home down quickly and maintaining a nice breeze.  The fan has two speed and the remote control works on a radio signal, so it will work anywhere within my home.

If the HV 1600 seems a bit pricey, you can find other whole house fans (models from Lowes & Home Depot) at your local home center.  However you need to consider how much noise these fans can generate and how you're going to handle the insulation issue in the winter (and even the summer when the fan isn't running). You'll also need to install a control switch  somewhere, ensure that you have enough air flow from your attic to the outside (gable, ridge, or soffit venting) and some of these fans are sized in such a way that you may need to do some additional framing in your attic to make them fit correctly.  I can't stress the insulation and noise issues enough.  Purchasing a less expensive fan may save you some money in having to run your air conditioner less, but you might end up costing yourself in increased winter heating costs and lost sleep due to high noise levels.  

The easy installation, insulating, low noise, and power of the Tamarak HV1600 made this fan the right one for my home.  One last important point I wanted to make is again related to the insulation we have in our home. I mentioned earlier how it's difficult to change the temperature in our home without mechanical intervention. Well, this holds true in the summer when it's cooler inside the home than outside.  Our strategy with the fan is to run it at night and in the morning to bring down the temperature in the home.  Around mid morning we'll turn the fan off and close the windows and doors to keep the cold in.  In the spring this was a good enough tactic to keep the house comfortable all day without having to use our AC.  I'm anticipating the same results in the fall as it's worked well for us the last few days.

The difference in energy consumption between my whole house fan and my whole house AC are very significant.  As I mentioned, my AC uses between 3,000 and 3,500 watts while it's running and the HV1600 uses only 100 to 150 watts depending on the speed setting of the fan.  Payback is completely dependent upon the amount of time you're substituting one for the other. If your home has good shading or temperatures are cooler, your payback with be quicker. Based on the amount of time we run the fan, my anticipated payback is around 2.5 years.

Stay cool!

Good Day Sunshine!!!

And for those Ice Cube fans in the crowd... "Today was a good day. I didn't even have to use my AC."  I took a little creative license there...


The screenshot below is what a perfectly sunny day looks like.


Mild temperatures, no air conditioner, and lots of sun = 48 kWh (and money) in the bank today.

Happy weekend!

65 Miles Per Gallon & New Site Announcement

OK, so I just had to post this because this is my new record and I’ve posted previously about my new low rolling resistance tires and what that means for gas mileage. I'm actually writing this from my car while sitting in a parking lot. I know I’m weirdly passionate about this stuff, but hey, would you want to read a blog written by someone who isn’t passionate about the topic they're covering?

 Anyway, I was able to achieve 65.2 miles per gallon on the way to work this morning. I’ve mentioned previously how driving habits can impact fuel economy greatly and I know it was only 21 miles and I did baby the car up-hill, blah, blah, blah,… but I usually only get around 52-54 in the morning. Not sure if I can point part of this to the tires, but I’m thinking that they didn’t hurt my case.




My Prius Command Center



My next post will be on a handy little device I just started using to kill the charger monster (not Philip Rivers) in my home!



One other quick aside… I took the plunge and registered potentiallyenergetic.com, so in the next few weeks I will likely be migrating the blog to the new site along with more of a web page kind of feel. More to come on that, but as I mentioned, I’m passionate about this topic, I very much enjoy writing about it, and I hope you enjoy reading about it! That being said, I’m also extremely interested in understanding what you would like to hear more about. I would image more people have been waiting to hear about the business case involved in the 10 kW solar array I have on my home and why it’s a good investment. I will be writing about that soon, but if there are topics you would like to see me cover, post a comment here or drop me an e-mail (dennis@potentiallyenergetic.com) and let me know. If it’s a device I already own, great, if not, I can help you justify the cost to your significant other (because I will have to justify purchasing it to my wife!). :o)

Until next time… same electrifying place…. more electrifying channels!

Dennis (dew55)





Ray Anderson

Just a quick aside.  Someone that I personally consider a hero passed away yesterday and I could not go without posting something since he is essentially the person that lead me down the path that I'm on today. There was little main stream media coverage of this, which is both a shame and is likely due to the fact that Ray Anderson was not a reality TV of sports star.  A sad reflection of our culture today.


Anyway, Mr. Anderson was a visionary leader who built his organization differently and set the blueprint for others to do the same. His book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, absolutely changed my life and if you're involved in the business world in any way, you would be doing yourself and your company a disservice if you didn't read it.






He will be missed!

I've Come to Drain Your Wallet!

I mentioned in a previous post how I use my home energy monitor to track phantom power and how much that power sucks from my wallet on an annual basis.  Phantom power, just to reiterate, is power that electronic devices consume even while they’re not in use.  You may also hear this referred to as "vampire" or "standby" power and a large number of electronic devices consume it.  In fact, according to the US Department of Energy, between five and ten percent of all residential power consumption in the US is phantom use and likely not necessary for operation of the device.

Devices in my home that were particularly large users of phantom power were my televisions, my DVR, and other entertainment system related devices. I have two primary home entertainment setups in my home; one in my living room and one in my family/daughter’s playroom.  Through use of my energy monitor I found that my living room setup was consuming 47 watts in standby power all the time even if I never turned a single device on. My daughter’s playroom setup was consuming 32 watts all the time. So how much was that costing me, you might ask? Here are some definitions and the math:

1,000 watts = 1 kilowatt or another way of stating this is 1 watt = 0.001 kilowatt

24 hours in a day

365 days in a year

24 hours x 365 days in a year = 8,760 hours in a calendar year

So, if you’re looking to calculate kilowatt hours (kWh) you multiply the amount of energy a device is using by the number of hours that it’s actually using that energy.  When considering phantom power, the electricity being drawn is constant, so in the case of my living room entertainment system the case is as follows:

0.047 kWh x 8,760 hours = 411.72 kWh

I then take this 411.72 kWh and multiply it by what I pay my electric utility company per kWh, which is approximately $0.12 per kilowatt hour.

411.72 kWh x $0.12/kWh = $49.41 per year in wasted money!

I can think of a lot of better uses for my $50 than throwing it at my utility provider for no apparent reason.  On top of this, the playroom setup was costing me an additional $33.64 per year.  OK, so this might not seem like a lot of money, but think of all of the other devices in your home that are constantly sucking power. If you have computers and monitor plugged in constantly, you can probably multiply this amount.  They quickly add up and result in billions (yes billions!) of dollars being wasted across the US each year, and growing, along with lots of bad things being put into the air that we breathe and water that we drink for no apparent reason.

My fix for this is shown below. It’s simple and cheap, paying for itself in both situations in about a year or less.  The way these power strips works is that a television is plugged into the “master” plug in the strip.  When the strip senses that you’ve turned off the power to the television, it cuts the power to the rest of the devices plugged into the strip.  There are “always on” plugs on the opposite side of the strip that allows you to leave power supplied to devices that, for one reason or another, you may want to leave plugged in. The strips also function as surge protectors.

360 Electrical's GreenSurge Device

Rocketfish 12 Outlet Surge Protector

This little device took the standby power in my living room from 47 watts to 7 saving me about $42 per year and the strip only cost $39.  I purchased a new EnergyStar rated television for the playroom due to the fact that the old television was starting to die.  This TV has internet widgets and allowed me to replace my TiVo with built-in Hulu Plus and Netflix apps.  This decreased the number of devices I had to have plugged in and the TV also has a proximity sensor built into it that automatically turns the device off after 15 minutes if no one is in the room watching it. All of these bells and whistles took my standby power from 32 watts down to 13 saving me $20/year and preventing my daughter from leaving the room and allowing the TV to run for hours for no reason.  I’m also getting closer to firing my cable company with this setup, but more on the energy implications of this later.

CNET has a good resource page to help you figure out what all of those entertainment related vampires are costing you, but the best method is to monitor yourself as usage levels can vary based on internal setting in many of these devices.  Lastly, when purchasing new appliances and electronics, always look for the EnergyStar label.

Happy vampire hunting!

Rollin, rollin, rollin on the road with a lower resistance while retaining a high coefficient of frictionnn...

OK, so it's no Proud Mary, but this is a blog, not a song writing session and I'm not paid to write either, so deal with it!


On to business! In two of my previous posts (stupid car, and kill-a-watt) I wrote about my constant attention to gas mileage and how I track it. Well, I was refueling my car this evening on my way home from work when, as I always do, I checked my gas mileage with my odometer and compared it to the car's computer because, strangely enough, they do not always reflect the same miles per gallon value.

In this case, the mileage between the two was spot-on with both coming to what you see here (51.3 mpg).  For those that own Prius's, you know that your fuel economy can be impacted by many things like (especially) the outdoor temperature, the way you drive, hills, how much you use the air conditioner, and even wet roads.  Because of the ridiculous, recent heat, my fuel economy has been down around 48 mpg and while I've run the AC a bit less over the last week or so, that would not completely account for the rise in fuel economy I was able to realize. Mystery, right?!?
  
Not exactly.  What I didn't tell you is that I've got an interesting (at least to me) little experiment going right now that seems to be working out well and it's one that might help all of you save some coin.  Even more so if you DO NOT drive a hybrid, have a low mpg rated vehicle and drive alot.


My car was recently up for inspection and emissions and unfortunately my car was sporting tires that I knew were beyond their useful life. So, I did a little research to see what was out there and what I could drone on about on this blog. Good news!  I found some and made sure that I knew what I was buying before the dealer called me and told me that I needed new tires and had to buy whatever brand hey had on hand or my car wouldn't pass inspection.  I have to say, though, my local Toyota Dealership worked hard to bring the tires in quickly from their warehouse and I would like to specifically thank Joe Bechtel from New Holland Auto Group for his help in making this happen quickly and the great customer service!


I first learned about "low rolling resistance tires" a few years back and decided to look into them a bit further.  In complete honesty, I thought the concept of your tires saving you fuel was complete marketing crap, but hey, I've been surprised by much lesser things.  As usual, my research lead me to Consumer Reports as it does for pretty much anything I buy these days and it turns out these things are for real.


Actually, according to Consumer Reports these tires can not only save you money, but actually perform better, over time, than traditional tires, all at little to no cost premium and no compromise in safety.  Seems like a great deal, right?  Well we'll see, and I will let you all know how it goes as the experiment has just started.  


For the record, I went with the Continental ProContact (TM) with EcoPlus Technology (Sounds fancy!) tires (shown above), which have an 80,000 mile warranty and I was able to pick up for $96/tire plus installation. Doing the math, if you drive 15,000 miles/year and the tires improve your fuel economy from 30 to 32 miles per gallon, you would save $109/year if gas is at $3.50/gallon.  That allows the tires to pay for themselves in less than 4 years or 60,000 miles, which is less than the tire warranty. Tires that pay you?!? But only if you rotate them regularly.

One other quick detail I wanted to mention that was completely overlooked this past week during all of the adult daycare, debt ceiling BS.  An agreement was made to raise corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Considering that current standards for cars is at 27.5 mpg and that I just saw that the Chevy Volt can achieve up to 270 miles per gallon, I think this is a huge opportunity for the American car companies to innovate, rise from the ashes, and return to dominance.  That would be good for all of us for a number of reasons!


Happy motoring!

My Home Energy Monitor

In my last post I listed a chart that showed a breakdown of my home's energy use, energy production from my photovoltaic system, and my utility meter from mid January of this year through yesterday.  This chart was generated by my Powerhouse Dynamics Emonitor, which is cool little device that monitors all twenty-four electrical circuits in my home and beams that information over the internet to an API that tracks and trends a wealth of information.


Every electron flowing to an electronic device in my home is accounted for, which allows me to look deep inside the workings of my home and identify those appliances that will keep my kids out of expensive private colleges!  The API rolls up the data to show me the big offenders, such as my air conditioner, as well as those phantom power sucking little guys like my TiVo.

The eMonitor dashboard shows the amount of power I'm producing (none at the moment since the sun has already set), what I'm using, and how much energy I'm pulling from the electric utility.  Also listed here is my carbon footprint, which in my case is zero due to our producing more energy than we consume.

You'll also notice the "Phantom Power" icon, which shows those devices that are drawing power nearly constantly.  These could be items such as cable boxes, DVRs, old stereos or other appliances.  As you can see, phantom power can cost you a significant amount of money over time.  I've got some handy, simple and cheap fixes for this that I'll discuss in a future post.

The pie chart shows me where I'm using energy on a 30-day rollup basis, where I stand as far as cost for the month, and what the top four energy offenders are (Bad air conditioner!).

With this data I am able to both drive my family crazy through frequent consumption lectures and, at the same time, identify where I can make changes to save cash.  I can easily justify replacing old appliances based on cost or simply choose to unplug those energy wasters that are not in use. The eMonitor even has a report card and gives me tips on how to reduce my consumption.


The additional interesting capability of the eMonitor is that it can control other "smart" (Zigbee) devices in you home, such as a WiFi enabled thermostat like the one that I own (more on this later).


Probably the most amazing feature of the Powerhouse Dynamics eMonitor is the fact that I can monitor my home electric use through the internet no matter where I am (there's even an iPhone app).  No more worrying about leaving a light or the oven on! As it will even text me alerts if something doesn't seem right. Since I can also control my thermostat with it, I can turn off my air conditioner (my largest electricity user) when I leave for a few days and turn it back on with my smartphone from the road on my return. I recently learned that WiFi enabled electrical outlets will be added to the eMonitor offering, which will allow me to be able to remotely control individual appliances.


The eMonitor can be purchased from Amazon.com and other retailers. I purchased mine from energycircle.com and prices vary depending on the number of circuits you would want to monitor and if you would also like to include power production (solar, wind, etc...).  While it is a bit pricey you'll likely recoup your money in a few years time (or less) with the savings you'll be able to achieve once you have the energy use data in hand.


I chose the eMonitor due to the fact that is was the only circuit by circuit energy monitor on the market at the time (January 2011).  There are others devices on the market that monitor a few circuits, such as the TED device that I've heard good things about, but to me, the extra information provided by the eMonitor saved me time in chasing down the energy wasters in my home, so there was some extra value there.


I was able to install the device myself, but I wouldn't recommend that job for just anyone.  Placement of the sensors that connect from the hot wire on each electrical circuit to the eMonitor requires you to remove the cover and place your hands inside of your circuit breaker box. I did this with the power shut off (and locked out) at the main coming into my house, on a weekend with my wife and kids away.


Anyway, I wanted to mention that I learned about the eMonitor from the TWiT Green Tech Today netcast, which I've embedded below.  I also wanted to mention that Jason Chen over at Lifehacker recently wrote a great review (much better than mine) that I would also recommend.



For those searching for a commercial solution, Powerhouse Dynamics now has a version of the emonitor for you as well.


Happy monitoring!

July Energy Production - Still Positive Territory!

I know I haven't written about this yet, but I have a 10 kW solar array on my home. I'm planning a post on the economics of purchasing the system and probably most importantly, the payback, but July was a big month for us.  Given the extreme temperatures we saw in Pennsylvania and the amount of time that our air conditioner had to run, I was not optimistic at our chances of producing more power than we use. Well the results are in (Emonitor and Enphase Enlighten data) and we edged it out by about 240 kW hours.


This keeps us on pace for about a 5 year pure payback and a positive cash flow situation in year 1. More to come on this...

Starting Off Slow… How to Kill-A-Watt

First things first! You’ve probably heard the old adage, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Well, when it comes to energy use, that couldn’t be more true. Especially when considering electricity because it isn’t something that you can see or feel unless something has gone terribly wrong!

My favorite example of this is what can be referred to as the “Prius Effect.”  This may come as a shock to everyone, but I drive a Toyota Prius. You know, one of those bubble looking things that runs partly on electric, partly on gasoline and sometimes both at the same time. Often seen sporting a “Coexist,” “Buy Fresh Buy Local,” and/or a “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” bumper sticker.  Well, the Prius has this cool little feature that allows you to see your real-time gas mileage as you drive (see below).  It turns out that when you present a person with real time consumption data, they have a tendency to change their consumption habits for the better.  This screen shows you how breaking and use of the throttle can dramatically impact your fuel economy.  It’s like a video game where every time you drive your car, you’re trying to achieve a new high score.

 

This data/behavior relationship is also true for your home.  However, If you’re like most people (my electric company pays me, but more to come on that), you probably receive a bill from your electricity provider every month with some mysterious dollar amount that they claim you owe them. You might have some idea where all that cost is coming from, but mostly it’s a guess.  If you had a way of telling where electricity was being used, you might be able to intelligently impact that number and keep some of your money.

Well, good news! There are now many devices on the market at various price ranges that allow you to see where you’re spending money and some even tell you what you can do about it. 

The first and least expensive is one of my personal favorites.  It’s the Kill-A-Watt EZ from P3 International and can be purchase from your local Home Depot or similar store for less than $30.

The Kill-A-Watt EZ can simply be plugged into an outlet near an electronic device.  Once plugged in, you can enter what you pay per kilowatt hour (which you can find on you electric bill) and plug the device you would like to measure into the Kill-A-Watt.  Use the device you’ve connected to the Kill-A-Watt and it will tell you what that device costs you in the way of electricity use on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.  The longer you use the Kill-A-Watt with the device you are measuring, the more reliable the cost/consumption data.

Here’s a nice video on how it works.

http://youtu.be/9-EA3Zhgy9c

If you’re looking to start with some big consumption items to measure with the Kill-A-Watt, try your refrigerator as they are one of the largest energy hogs in most homes especially if your refrigerator is not EnergyStar rated.  In fact, if you have an older refrigerator, which is the beer fridge in a lot of homes, it’s probably costing you  at least $100/year over what an EnergyStar qualified refrigerator would, which makes for some expensive beer!  Check out USEPA’s EnergyStar information on refrigerators for more information. You can even plug in information about your refrigerator on their site and it will tell you how much it’s costing you.

That’s it for now. Next time, more on whole house energy monitors like the Powerhouse Dynamics Emonitor, which I have installed in my home, as well as information on phantom power.

Ready, Set, GO!... No, seriously, GO! (STUPID CAR!)

So, I thought I would take those of you that haven’t been listening to me drone on for the last few years through how I came to where I am now in my search for energy geekdom.  I first remember caring about energy conservation when I was in high school.  I drove about 60 miles/day to and from school and to both my job as a meat engineer (Burger King) and as an artist in training (Paint mixer at a Benjamin Moore paint store). While gasoline wasn’t tremendously expensive at the time, on my salary, a few miles here and there could mean a new stick for my ice hockey habit.  My motorized companion in these daily travels was a little white Geo (Chevrolet) Metro that I lovingly deemed the “Love Bug.” I later graduated to a Geo Spectrum (Love Bug 2), which my friends colorfully nicknamed after a part of the human anatomy that rhymes with Spectrum and I will not give them the satisfaction of listing here...

Anyway, if you aren’t familiar with the Geo Metro (pictured below), you clearly haven’t lived!  At the time, this engineering marvel was the finest example of a motorcycle on four wheels that had ever been created!  Three cylinders of raw, unhinged power, ready to strike the hearts of every prospective love interest in the Western Pennsylvania area, but I digress…



Love Bug 1 - Jealous much?   



Another example that was way cooler than mine!

                                                                                                                                               



  

OK, so I wasn’t exactly Zach Morris, but the car was able to achieve 40 miles/gallon in 1993 (Yes, 1993, so what in the world happened the last 20 years?).  If I would make slow starts and kept the air conditioner off, I could squeeze the fuel economy up to about 42 mpg.  If I dared to use the AC, however, the car would pause for three seconds every time I tried to move from a stopped position. Not a good thing when you’re a 16-year old lead foot that would sometimes attempt to make turns that I no longer would.

In any event, I may not have had the wheels the ladies noticed, but I could afford a smiley cookie or two at the local Eat-N-Park. ;o)  I have to say that I also felt like I was doing something positive by attempting not to use a lot of fuel even back then. Not sure I knew why, though…

Fast forward a few years and I find myself in a strangely familiar place.  For all of the “green” (a word I despise!) benefits of saving energy, and there are many, I am still attracted to the savings.  My motivations these days are sort of similar, but also drastically different.  I’m still concerned about the women in my life, but today my savings go toward a college fund for my two beautiful daughters or saving for a dinner out with my wonderful wife or a vacation with the whole family.  I’m also and equally motivated by attempting to do whatever I can to leave something in the way of resources for future generations. Funny how things change, but remain remarkably the same.

Whatever your motivation, it does not appear that energy prices are doing anything but heading north in the foreseeable future.  So, if saving money, and maybe doing something positive for the environment sounds like something you’re interested in, stay tuned!

Kickoff!

In the spirit of the recently ended NFL lockout and seeing as how this is the inaugural post, I felt “Kickoff” was appropriate as a title. Hopefully I don’t outkick my coverage, so anyway, here we go…

The general gist of this blog is based on the idea that the cheapest unit of energy (for a number of reasons) is the one that you can avoid consuming.  Being a self proclaimed “energy geek” I’ve dedicated my life and irritated my friends, classmates, relatives, coworkers, and anyone else in ear shot with my constant search for new and innovative ways to reduce my personal energy use and help others do the same.  I've named this blog “Potentially Energetic” mostly because “Potential Energy” was already taken.  Also, for those that know me, you know that I can be rather passionate (to say the least) about the topic, so I felt “Potentially Energetic” was appropriate for that reason as well.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my rants and attempts at humor, but also find some of the product reviews and links I post both relevant and helpful to you!

Cheers,

Dennis