MYTHBUSTING

It is fashionable these days to talk about a “Manhattan Project” or an “Apollo Project” or a “Marshall Plan” for New Energy. Some of the most important guys in the fight are leading the charge, guys like Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times journalist Tom Friedman and energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens and Nobel laureate Al Gore.

There is nothing wrong with grand aspirations. Demanding challenges can keep a person or a nation lean and mean. The U.S. has committed itself in recent years to far too few things it really could control and thereby left itself subject to the whims and impositions of the ill-intentioned and misguided.

But sometimes something that makes all the difference can be so simple it’s easy to forget. Telling loved ones you love them, telling them you’re proud of their efforts – things like that can be so powerful, so meaningful, yet are so easily overlooked.

And so it is with New Energy. James Hansen and Amory Lovins are two brilliant scientists who were fighting climate change and talking about New Energy when Friedman was still covering the Middle East from Beirut and Pickens was hunting oil in the North Sea and Al Gore was in Congress.

Hansen published a paper predicting global climate change in 1981, shook the world with his 1988 testimony to Congress and in recent years stood up against the Bush administration's efforts to ignore climate change. He's Gore's science advisor. Lovins' 1976 Energy Strategy paper is still considered a New Energy masterpiece. Know what Hansen and Lovins are talking the most about these days?

Efficiency. Something all too easy to forget. Something Vice President Cheney shrugged off as merely “personal virtue.” Something President Carter drastically lost popular approval for taking Americans’ time to talk about.

Yet the state of California has proven, Hansen recently pointed out to Charley Rose, that efficiency measures can cut energy consumption 50%. FIFTY PERCENT!

Efficiency is the fastest way to cut gas pump prices, the fastest way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the fastest way to eliminate the need for the triple poisons of new coal plants, new nuclear plants and foreign oil wars, the fastest way to disempower Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Utilities.

Take away those peoples’ power and influence and people who understand that the only long term solution to the world’s energy needs is New Energy could get elected to Congress. They could get the U.S. on track to building a 21st century energy infrastructure. They could make this still-new century something better than a sad replay of the 20th century’s misguided misadventures in fossil fuels and pollution.

So don’t read the ACEEE article summarized here as just another list of trivialities. Read it as The Real Plan To Save The World, a plan everybody can do something about right now.

In a few months the country will choose new leadership. It is entirely likely those folks will have an admirable “Manhattan Project” or an “Apollo Project” or a “Marshall Plan” and it will include climate change mitigation and New Energy and it will ask a lot of really good, hard, worthwhile work of the nation. The nation is more than ready for it.

In the meantime, tell loved ones you love them and do something to show how much you love this world – turn off the lights when you leave the room.

Maybe you’ll get real lucky when you whisper love to your loved one and you can turn off the lights while you’re both still IN the room.

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ACEEE Busts Energy Efficiency Myths
August 14, 2008 (America Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy)

WHO
America Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE); the average energy consumer

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WHAT
To counteract bad information, ACEEE reveals the energy-saving truth and discredits 10 energy-wasting myths.

WHEN
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact 1: When leaving a room – develop the habit of turning off lights. Turning them off for even a few minutes adds up to big energy savings and does no harm to bulbs.
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact 3: When “warming up” a “cold” car – don’t waste gas idling a long time. Just drive gently when starting out. (And idling wastes more gas than turning a modern car off and on.)

WHERE
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact 4: Away from the house for 8 opr more hours – turning the thermostat down saves more energy than is used bringing the temperature back up. (A heat pump thermostat must be properly programmed.)
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact 9: At the windows – high performance (Energy Star) windows must be properly installed and only pay for themselves if they must be replaced for other reasons.
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact 10: At the walls – west and south wall placement of windows and properly sized windows are efficient. Otherwise, walls are better than windows.

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WHY
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact #5: Heating and air-conditioning system maintenance, including regular air filter replacements, makes them efficient.
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact # 6: Proper size, ducting and installation are crucial to heating and air-conditioning system efficiency. Get the right contractor and Energy Star equipment.
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact # 7: New refrigerators, clothes washers, and dishwashers are much more efficient than those 10 or more years old. Side-by-side refrigerator/freezers generally use more energy than freezer-on-top models. Icemakers use extra energy. Front-loading clothes washers save energy and water over top-loaders. Stoves vary relatively little in efficiency.
- ACEEE Mythbusting Fact # 8: Turn off computers when done using them. Let them hibernate when idle. Buy Energy Star models. (Screensavers don’t save energy.)

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QUOTES
ACEEE Mythbusting Fact # 2: Compact Flourescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) – “Todayt’s compact fluorescent lightbulbs work just as well as incandescents, and are just as safe. CFLs have come a long way in terms of quality and variety, and use a fraction of the energy of incandescent bulbs. Look for the ENERGY STAR label to ensure high quality bulbs, and try out different color varieties to find the one you like best (“soft white” most closely mimics the color of an incandescent). As for safety, even if a bulb breaks in your house authorities suggest that there is not enough mercury in the bulb to present a substantial health hazard. That being said, efforts should be taken to dispose of CFLs properly.”