Fuel Price Pro

Robin Green asked:


Before you rush out and get a new energy saving refrigerator, it’s important to understand how much energy your old fridge consumes. Why? For three reasons.

First, because you’ll be looking at Energy Guide labels on the new fridges, to find out which ones will cost the least to operate, and you might as well have an idea of how they compare to your existing refrigerator.

Second, if you want to replace your fridge mainly to save electricity, you may find out that you don’t need to. While today’s refrigerators are far more efficient than those of ten years ago, your fridge may turn out to be efficient enough that there isn’t a convincing motivation to replace it. You might save more money on energy, for the same investment, on weatherproofing or a new window or two.

Third, you may discover your existing fridge uses so much energy, that a refrigerator tune-up will save you money even in the short time before you buy the new unit. Things that can really help are: checking the gaskets for leaks or cracks, checking the temperature in both compartments (38-40F for fridge, 5F for freezer), ensuring the compressor and coils are dust free; and keeping good air circulation around the unit. Even if you find out that your old refrigerator is an electricity hog and you do a tune-up, you might find that the tune-up on its own will result in big electricity savings.

Your current refrigerator could easily be costing you $25 to $125 a year more than it should, and your new refrigerator may turn out to be less efficient than its ENERGY STAR label claims, depending on how you use it. But if you merely assume that a refrigerator uses what its label claims, you’ll be leaving a big opportunity on the table.

What if I told you that $20 could save you at least $40 a year, every year? It turns out that there is an inexpensive device that can do just what we’re after: measure the energy consumption of your fridge.

I bought a Kill A Watt meter about five years back and have used it to measure the energy consumption of many appliances in my house. I have also lent it to friends and family so that they could uncover energy savings of their own. These meters are available for about $20 and they measure how many kilowatt hours per day (kwh/day) an appliance like a fridge consumes. A measurement takes about three days, because a fridge cycles on and off, and only a longer measurement irons out the peaks and valleys of the refrigerator’s electricity use. But once you have that reading, you will know what your refrigerator consumes and you can start choosing actions to save electricity, or you can make a more sound decision about replacing your old refrigerator.

The Kill A Watt meter measures electricity use in several ways. The important readings for our purposes are time elapsed and kilowatt hours used. The Kill A Watt meter measures both of these values from the moment it is plugged in, so if you plug in the meter, then plug your fridge into the meter soon after, you’ll start to see how much electricity your refrigerator uses once a minimum of 24 hours have passed. Follow these steps:

1. Pull your refrigerator out from the wall. Unplug it and plug an extension cord into the wall outlet instead.

2. Plug the Kill A Watt meter into the other end of the extension cord, and the fridge plug into that. Leave the meter where its display is visible.

3. Push the fridge back. (You can just stick the Kill A Watt meter between the wall socket and the refrigerator, if that allows you to see the meter while you’re taking the measurement.)

4. Wait at least 36 hours to measure. Ideally you should wait 48 to 96 hours. If you keep pressing the red button on the Kill A Watt meter you will see readings for, among others, the hours and minutes elapsed, and the kilowatt hours consumed. You can compute kilowatt hours per day using the following formula:

kwh/day = kwh / ((hours/24)+(minutes/1440))

So if the final reading is 2.37 kwh and the elapsed time is 34h22m, the consumption would be 2.37 / ((34/24)+(22/1440)), or 1.655 kwh/day. Don’t wait more than four days to do your reading, because the time elapsed measurement wraps back to zero at 99h59m.

Most fridges are rated in terms of kilowatt hours consumed per year, so to compare your existing refrigerator with what’s available now, you can multiply the kwh/day result by 365. Our hypothetical fridge which we determined uses 1.655 kwh/day consumes 604 kwh/year. A 16 cubic foot Sun Frost fridge, in comparison - one of the most efficient refrigerators available - consumes only 254 kwh/year.

You can see how your existing fridge stacks up against new models by searching the www.energystar.gov database, for models that share features of your refrigerator. Fridge efficiency standards have gone up in recent years, and a fridge typically consumes more energy as it ages, due to worn gaskets, dust buildup on compressor and coils, wear and tear on the motor, and occasionally loss of refrigerant. And ENERGY STAR rated refrigerators must be at least 20% more efficient than the standard, so if you own an old refrigerator that was not ENERGY STAR rated when you bought it, you can see there is a big potential for savings, especially if you know your current consumption.

The efficiency requirement for refrigerators varies based on configuration (top or bottom freezer, side-by-side, or no freezer), volume, defrost features, and refrigerant type. And the formula is so convoluted that few people other than US EPA and DOE officials, and appliance company engineers, can really grasp it. So rather than quote the standard let’s look at a couple of examples.

An ENERGY STAR rated, 10 cubic foot, auto defrost unit that consumes 309 kilowatt hours per year, is 21% better than the minimum required for its category.

A 14 cubic foot partially automatic defrost unit that uses 254 kilowatt hours per year, is an amazing 36% better than the standard specifies.

As you can see, even for units that sport an ENERGY STAR logo, there is a wide range of efficiencies, and don’t forget that a large unit that exceeds the standard by 36% may still use more energy than a smaller fridge that exceeds the standard by only 20%, if the minimum standard for the two fridges is different. If you can choose a smaller refrigerator when you buy a new one, you will certainly save more energy.

Once you have measured how much electricity your refrigerator uses (it will probably be in the range of 400 and 600 kilowatt hours per year, depending on the size of unit, or even more if you have wasteful features such as side-by-side doors or an exterior ice and cold water dispenser) you can compare the consumption of your unit to those at the ENERGY STAR website, and see if it’s time to do a refrigerator tune up, or replace your refrigerator altogether.

If you’re in luck, you might discover that the model you have now is already an energy saving refrigerator. If not, at least you’ll have a great tool for seeing if your new fridge measures up to its billing.

Nick Tart asked:


Thousands of organizations and businesses are going the extra mile and spending the extra dollar to buy utility-scale energy from renewable resources. So much so that the United States E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency) compiles a quarterly list of the top green power companies from their Green Power Partnership program which came out in July 2008.

Some businesses take diminutive steps towards a green campaign, but these companies are proving their allegiance to a greener environment by voluntarily spending millions of dollars on clean energy.



Intel purchased 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in January 2008. This compensates for 47 percent of the companies overall energy use.

PepsiCo purchased 1.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2007, the equivalent of powering 90,000 homes for an entire year. This accounts for 100 percent of their annual energy use. PepsiCo was named Green Power Partner of the Year in 2007 by the E.P.A.

U.S. Air Force has already purchasd 9 million kilowatt hours of electricity this year as of July 2008. They have invested in a number of biogas, biomass, geothermal, solar and wind energy providers.

Wells Fargo has purchased 5.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity from wind energy providers thus far in 2008. They are also a Green Power Partner of the Year in 2007. More than green energy, Wells Fargo has made a number of other commitments to their green campaign including LEED certifying their buildings and offering online account statements.

Whole Foods Market, the past two years has purchased enough green energy to compensate for 100 percent of their energy use, totalling to over 5 million kilowatt hours annually. The company is also investing in multiple other efforts to reduce their carbon footprint on the environment.



Other organizations ranking high on the E.P.A.’s list are Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson and the University of Pennsylvania.

Stan Stomp asked:


Pure sunshine makes almost all of the world’s energy. Let’s repeat that; Pure sunshine makes almost all the world’s energy! No matter how you look at it the sun works in mysterious ways, whether the energy is harvested from of a tree, plant and then used indirectly as wood, pellets, oil or coal(taking billions of years) the majority of energy we use is a product of the sun. Enough sun energy falls on the earth in a single day to supply us with energy for several years. This could also be through several man made sources including solar panels, solar heating and solar hot water panels.

 

    The energy the sun supplies is free, all we need to do is put the equipment in place to harness the raw power going to waste every day. The energy we harness and use today will not deplete the energy we can harness and use tomorrow or the day after and best of all there will still be plenty for our children without the harmful effects on the environment. The drawback for many is the start up cost for purchasing and installing a system. You are paying for your electricity in a lump sum in advance before you even get to enjoy the clean energy. Our culture unfortunately is governed by “pay as you go” which makes all the utility companies very popular since they only charge us for what we use in a given period of time. Imagine paying up front for installation and never having to pay another electricity bill. Maintaining the system is well, basically maintenance free. 

    So what do you need to make solar energy—-Just the equipment - the sun does the rest! The equipment would be PV Panels, charge controller, batteries, system monitor, inverter and a circuit breaker panel. There are more and more manufacturers, distributors and suppliers of this equipment every day. If you do not believe me the go to the government site http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/solarphotv/solarpv.htmland see the information for yourself. Since 1997 this industry has grown exponentially each and every year. 

    To fulfill your energy requirements in any weather a good backup system to the solar would be a wind generator. Usually if it is cloudy a solar system will not generate the same output as it would on a sunny day. With the weather being unsettled usually there is wind and wind can also mean electricity backup. It takes and average wind speed of 9 miles per hour to keep a wind generator generating electricity. If wind power is not an option than additional energy storage batteries can also be a solution. 

    No matter how you look at it solar energy, green energy and wind energy is the only option for a socially responsible culture. We just need to adjust to the change now before the damage we do to the earth is irreversible. The government is offering tax credits for the installation of solar energy systems, up to 30% of the cost, you can see the tax form and instructions here http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5695.pdfany way you look at it, and it makes more and more sense to install a solar system to create energy.

Martin Johnstone asked:


Society as a whole is submerged… submerged within the depths of marketing campaigns run by corporate giants? This is a question that anyone could ask and anytime it is asked, could unveil a certain degree of truth in anyone’s life “How did the community - the society arrive at where it is at now?”. The energy industry is filled with giants dictating (could you say dictating? how you ever found out for yourself?) what energies are consumed by the general populace.

If you look to see at how products have become popular, you may find it has been through TV, advertising, celebrities - many of which are endorsed by large corporate organizations and carry along with their ads, the message of these corporations. Thus, you are looking at a large fabric through which many of us look, squint or even peer through to see what is actually available to us in almost any commercial market.

In addition, the current fuels which in general use have relatively high and dangerous waste products. Thus, the information could be said to not be widely known by the general populace as when informed, make better decisions. And so we could say, perhaps ignorance is the path to domination by a few and a dark destiny. If you have any questions and would rather not know, don’t take heed the claims of global warming, increased volatility of weather conditions and/or a Mother Earth’s cry for help.

Although, now with the Internet, many new markets, pockets of clique’s, interest groups, etc… have evolved and are evolving allowing for products to be sold which were not before, services to be offered and the demand filled. It is true that now more millionaires have been made than ever before and many of which have come from the Internet.

Apart of this evolution, new information comes to light such as that which has been found with such things as Hydrogen fuels. Most fuels which are seen on the market currently are centralized and controlled under corporate blankets. If you look at petroleum or nearly any current technology used in mass production of general energy consumption (for example the energy that arrives to your house comes from large plants - centralized - the gas from your car comes from large plants - centralized, etc…, etc…) you will find is centralized and controlled by large corporate structures. But along with these new emerging groups are the green energy groups.

Alternate fuels keep punching away at the headlines of magazines and newspapers (possibly filled with propaganda?) about these various fuels. But, the repetition and noise generated by these green energy groups can but help being heard as the news is ground breaking and shaking it as well.

One of these groups is that has been forming at an incredibly rapid rate is the Hydrogen from water groups. These guys are using water and a basic form of electrolysis (use of electricity such as that which comes from you car battery to electrify water and perform a chemical reaction) to create Hydrogen from ordinary water. This technology has existed since 1820 but also with additional new technologies which have come about, this process is now available to anyone.

Hydrogen is also known as a comparable to gasoline as it is 3X’s as explosive and converts back to water when combusted. Why hasn’t it been in use in vehicles already? (If the answer is not apparent, pleas re-read earlier paragraphs and find out for yourself)

The ease of use and availability of the parts to make hydrogen from water has lead many people from the world to take part. The hydrogen’s most popular use has been to supplement car’s gasoline in-take.

Hydrogen use with car installations as a gas supplement is really only the beginning of the use of hydrogen power as 1 jar of water (approx 6 ounces) will convert to large amounts of hydrogen (as water is basically a “compressed” form of hydrogen) and can be used to power houses, RVs running them for weeks.

The proportions may seem fantastic but when you take into account the fact that HHO (hydroxy) when combusted, turns back to water, you have a fuel which has tremendous potential for efficiency, longevity and cost savings due to the fact is this planet’s largest resource available as a free burning energy.

Anyone who does a simple search with Google on the Internet with HHO, hydroxy, HHO generator or any of the such will find thousands upon thousands of documents representing the growing numbers of people across the world who are taking part of this emerging group across the net which is now extending it’s fabric through to local communities and allowing for a greener planet by cutting out pollutants, cutting down on the need for gasoline, improving gas mileage and a myriad of other eco-friendly solutions to normal day living.

So, count your pennies a little less, take hit and punch through a bit of this fabric which has perhaps been paid out in front of your eyes by the blankets of corporate marketing campaigns. Do a search on the net, check out the afore mentioned sites and see, perhaps it is true that you don’t have to spend so much gas or be in the dark on alternative energies.