Saving Electricity
Author: Enviro Saver
Being conscious of the amount of electricity a person uses and how they can reduce the amount of electricity they use can have quite an impact on the carbon emissions created by its use. Here are some tips on how one can save electricity:
•Don’t leave the televisions turned on when not in use.
•Turn off computers when they are not in use.
•Wash your clothes in the bathtub with cold water rather than using the washing machine. This will save electricity that is used to operate the machine and heat the water.
•Hang clothes to dry outside on a warm day or on a line in the basement. Dryers are an incredible waste of electricity.
•Keep heat turned down to a minimum on cold days and wear a sweater. There 0are also cute sweaters available for dogs and cats that keep them warm.
•Minimize the use of air conditioners and only purchase ones with a high efficiency rating.
•Put extra blankets on the bed for more warmth. Dogs can also be a great foot warmer when they sleep at the bottom of the bed.
•Keep filters on air conditioning and furnaces clean.
•Time the showers. The less hot water used, the less energy is needed to heat water.
•Hand wash dishes and let them air dry.
•Try to avoid using the oven or stove for cooking food. In many cases, smaller appliances are more efficient with the amount of electricity they use.
•When using the stove, use the elements that fit the pots and pans. Using an element that is too big wastes electricity.
•Use glass or ceramic dishes when cooking in the oven as they transfer heat to the food more efficiently.
•Cook more than one meal if possible when using the oven as this will mean the oven is used less and more energy will be saved.
•Unplug electronics when they are not in use. Even when they are off, they continue to consume electricity.
•Purchase the new energy saving light bulbs. They are bright, last a long time and use less electricity than the traditional incandescent lights.
•Paint the walls lighter colors so that more light is bounced around, which makes the entire room brighter.
•Insulating windows by putting drapes, blinds or shades over them can reduce the amount of warm/cool air that escapes through the windows.
•Let the sun shine in through the window on a colder day as the sun will heat up the room, and open windows that are away from the sun on warmer days to cool the room.
•Replace old windows with newer windows.
•Don’t cover air ducts or heat registers.
•Close doors to rooms that don’t need to be heated or cooled.
•Insulate the hot water heater.
•Shower instead of bathing.
Following these tips to save electricity can help you reduce carbon emissions, reducing your carbon footprint.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/saving-electricity-403499.html
About the Author
This article was brought to you by Enviro Saver Carbon Offsets - A Carbon Offset Program helping you reduce emissions and save electricity.
What does electricity do to the environment?
I am doing a project on how much really electricity impacts the environment. I’m only asking questions that basically I can’t find. I figured another person with another veiw on this would point me in the direction of finding a source for my research.
What are various things that you know electricity does to the environment? How much does it affect the environment? How much does turbines and solar panels have to with the damage? Do they cause the majority of the damage?
I’m mainly looking for a source regarding how much damage(to the environment)solar panels and turbines make by producing electricity.
List your sources to the exact place you found the information.
How does using less water and less electricity help the environment?
How could the building of nuclear reactors to produce electricity affect the environment?
Urgently Needed!!!!
Also what is nuclear reactors? and any other information on them could help!….
How does saving electricity help the environment?
It’s not like the electric companies are going to burn less coal and oil if we reduce our electricity use in our homes. The same amount of pollution is still going into the air whether we turn our lights off or not.
Or am I missing something?
How does using electricity hurt the environment?
Ever since I started hearing about it, I always wondered how using electricity hurts the environment. I understand like using an electronic things or a battery and throwing it away, but people also mention just normal indoor lighting and electronic things such as AC. How ecologically dirty can electricity be? It doesn’t do anything.
The most significant damage to the environment in the production of electricity is the pollution from coal burning power plants. Dark plums of pollution are released into the atmosphere causing acid rain, smog, cancer and even global warming.
The next most significant damaging electrical production process is actually hydro-electric dams. Although the production of electricity from these damns are pollution free, the fact that they stop the flow of water is what causes the most damage. This creates stagnant water with rotting leaves and debree which break down and create methane gasses. Not to mention the ecological disasters that happen down stream from lack of sediment and nutriants.
Wind power/wind turbines are very clean and very effective ways of producing electricty. Yes some birds are killed by wind turbines, but the number is so very small compaired to natural deaths and deaths of birds running into glass buildings that I consider it almost insignificant.
Solar power, in my opinion is the ultimate alternative energy. Solar panels are getting more efficient and less expensive at a rate of 5% per year and are a great way to escape the grasp of your local electricity companies. The energy is clean and not pollution is produced in the conversion process (like wind). Of course the production of wind turbines and solar panels do use resources, however when compaired as a whole to other “dirty” forms of electricity, Solar and Wind are by far the cleanest.
Hope that helps ya out!
It would depend on how the electricity is generated.
If it is generated by a coal fired plant, the discharge from the coal fired plant is highly acidic and heavy in sulfur. This causes upland lakes to not be able to support aquatic life due to the increasing acidic nature of the lakes. More acid, less oxygen. The fall out from the smoke then taints the soils and they become polluted and can no longer support plant life. And when it rains the run off from rain then flows into creeks and then rivers killing aquatic life and plants because of the sulfur and several other chemicals released by the burning process.
If the electricity is generated by a large hydro plant, dams can cause loss of fish habitat, millions of smolt killed in the turbines and river bank changes due to non natural flow of the river. Plus down stream soil erosion.
Electricity generated by wind farms used to have the problem of killing lots of birds., now the new generation of turbines/props turn at a slow enough speed that most birds easily avoid them. But they do become an eyesore and the noise pollution from living near them can be unsettling. There is very little environmental damage due to these units. But pollution from oil in the turbines can be one source.
Mini hydro, wind and solar generated electricity can have little to no environmental impact. These are the best ways to generate electricity and can be very cost effective for new construction.
Exactly the opposite: electric companies won’t produce as much electricity when demand decreases. If they don’t produce as much, they don’t burn as much fossil fuels. It’s simple supply and demand economics, just like any other sector of the economy.
This really wouldn’t be an issue if power companies switched over to clean fuels, but it is much more expensive to utilize it. Plus the infrastructure doesn’t exist yet. So that won’t be a feasible option until renewable technologies develop more in the coming decades.
I suspect clean coal and natural gas will eventually supply the overwhelming majority of the Earth’s electricity in the future.
less electricity means less pollution, less resources used, such as oil and coal. Less CO2 released and thus less global warming.
Less water means less electricity to produce it, less resources used.
In a nuclear reactor, nuclear fission takes place creating energy.
The problem is that they cause toxic waste- and this is very hard to get rid of, so when they do, they pollute the environment with it.