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General discussion

New Forum? Energy Savings?

Jan 17, 2010 6:24AM PST

To the Powers that be?
Could you initiate and set up an Energy Savings Forum!?

The idea is to delve into new areas of energy savings.
May be in the area of alternative heat pumps, solar hot water heat or solar electric grids, wind turbines, etc. that will initiate a payback program from our energy grids.
Could be an interesting Forum here at CNET.

My original post, concerning the Acadia Heat Pump has generated lots of links for over a year.

A new Forum was suggested to me by James Dennison. I think that it could work here at CNET and would have some interest.
I am sure there would be commercial interests here as well on CNET with the pop-up ads.

How much coal is available in the US v/s Oil?
Why are the US Military and our commercial Airline industry switching to a new universal jet fuel utilizing coal technology presently??

A new Energy Savings Forum is worth considering.

Ask James Dennison to be the Mod. at the Energy Savings Forum. James would be good here on CNET.
A very savvy guy!

There are a lot of interests to save energy today.

Here are some links to look at and consider as an example of interests.
Pay particular attention to the side ads and who are advertising on those sites:

http://www.solarelectricpower.org/
http://www.goinggreen.com/
http://www.simplesteps.org
http://www.thegreenguide.com/
http://ecmweb.com
http://ecmweb.com/products/electric_heating_system_generates/
http://www.massoilheat.org/DegreeDayBoston.htm
http://www.gotohallowell.com
http://www.lehmans.com

Thanks,

- Kevin

Discussion is locked

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Suggestion and not a hijack
Jan 17, 2010 6:40PM PST

Since the forums are largely technology oriented, do you think it would be better to integrate that aspect as well. We all know about wastefulness but not about all of the ways that technology can be used to assist and fine tune the process. We'd need to, in my thinking, separate $$$ savings from energy savings. They are not the same thing and we find that out every day. Currently in many ways it's less costly in dollars (in the short term) to be wasteful. An interesting debate could easily come from advertised versus true savings in both $$$ and energy use. One of my favorite sayings has been something to the effect that "in order to get something clean, something else must get dirty". It's what gets dirty that we omit touting the advantages of an idea or plan.

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That would have to be a very broad topic.
Jan 17, 2010 11:11PM PST

There are many ways to and many ways of saving energy, and they go way beyond heating/cooling units,

Even today some green homeowners heat and cool ad even lighting their homes for free with Photovoltaics, and cook meals, as well. Unused produced watts are sold to the local utility. The tiles are coming down in price as we speak, and would definitely be my choice for new construction or remodeling. I suspect in a fairly short time they would also be suitable for retrofitting.

Though it cannot be used for lighting or cooking, heating and cooling via Geothermics is also green.

There have been organizations that have promoted green energy for years, even before "carbon footprint" entered the picture.

Many local utility companies provide information to their consumers on how to save on usage, thus on their bills/

We invested in solar hot water heating when it was ;the thing" in the 1980s. it worked great, But the solar tank itself developed leaks after about 6 months for the 4-4 years we had the system. In addition, the companies that serviced the units went out of business.

So being energy conscious is nothing new. There has been a stable interest in it while peaks have occurred during such events as oil shortages/high prices and Love Canal.

Several years ago Detroit marketed an electric car that Californians loved. But then management decided against it and ordered all of the cars confiscated and destroyed. US consumers had gone back to gas guzzlers.

There are better light bulbs, better insulations, and other improvements being made.

There are many long-time organizations and other forum accesses devoted to energy savings, and some are well known and have made a difference.

A newer one with a high profile and viewer-ship is a series of programs on HGTV. The Do It Yourself Network also has features on this.

Angeline

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Energy Savings
Jan 20, 2010 11:24PM PST

Hi! Thanks for nice sharing.