garden home &
Living in the
Energy vampires
Televisions, computers, monitors, printers and other equipment silently suck electricity from our homes even when we think
we’ve turned them off. The “instant on” features of TVs and other displays actually mean
the device is in a persistent stand-by mode,
constantly drawing a trickle of electricity and
wasting an estimated 43 billion kilowatts a
year. “Even shutting appliances down for
seven or eight hours a night can save the average homeowner a hundred dollars a year,”
estimates Glenn Fay, co-owner of Oakleigh
Vermont, an online retailer that specializes in
earth-friendly technology products.
Steve Long, director of government relations at The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern
Region office in Boston, recommends thwarting these “energy vampires” by plugging them
all into “smart” power strips that not only
provide surge protection for the electronics
but also sense when the devices are not in use
and shut them down completely.
green house
Eco-friendly technologies help you
go green at home (and at work)
By Dan Daley
AS ENERGY, WATER and other resources
become less abundant and more costly, going
green at the household level becomes more
practical. Fortunately, there are more new
technologies and products coming to market
than ever before that can help you achieve significant savings of both energy and money.
which uses energy even more efficiently.
According to calculations by Jeff Crane, CEO
of energy conservation consultant Concept to
Creation, a 75-watt incandescent bulb costs
$3.80 a month to operate; a 12-watt LED does
the same job for 43 cents.
Good day, sunshine
MEDIA BAKERY
Solar power generation has been around
for decades, but recent advances in materials
and systems management have made it far
more efficient and cost-effective. Photovoltaic
and newer thin-film technologies gather solar
energy and are used to heat swimming pools,
power home water heaters and even generate
all the electricity a home needs and then
some. Solar electric generating systems are
expensive, upwards of $15,000. On a smaller
scale, consider purchasing a solar-powered
battery charger to power up your camera,
cellphone, iPod or laptop.
Meter, meter on the wall
The programmable digital thermostat is
already a common fixture in many homes. It
allows homeowners to turn heating and air-
28 The Costco Connection AUGUST 2009
Fiat lux
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs)
are the size of a standard incandescent light-bulb, but last six to 10 times as long and use
25 percent or less of the power of an equivalent incandescent bulb. CFLs dissipate far less
of their energy use as heat and more as light,
so a 14-watt CFL will provide the same
amount of light as a 65-watt incandescent
bulb. According to Energy Star (www.energy-
star.gov), the joint program of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
the Department of Energy, that rates energy-saving products and practices, if every home
in America replaced just one incandescent
light bulb with a CFL, in one year it would
save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes.
The newest generation of lighting technology is the light-emitting diode (LED),
Green investment
GOING GREEN CAN be expensive, but
there are ways to offset those costs.
Dozens of federal, state and local incentives are offered to homeowners who
implement energy-saving technologies.
Find them at Web sites Green and Save
(
www.greenandsave.com), Green Made
Simple (
www.greenmadesimple.com) or
the Database of State Incentives for
Renewables and Efficiency (www.dsire
usa.org). For example, the Marin County,
California, Sustainability Team rebates
$500 for a photovoltaic system, $300 for a
solar water heater and $200 for a solar
pool heater to local residences.
According to Mike Rogers of
GreenHomes America (
www.greenhomes
america.com), with U.S. federal government tax credits of up to $2,000 for whole-house solar electricity generation systems,
and state incentives that in some cases
cover more than 65 percent of the cost of
the system, full amortization of an investment can occur in less than five years.
Finally, some solar power-generating
technologies are so efficient that they
have the potential to create more power
than the home uses, allowing the excess
to be sold back to the utility. Imagine
opening the monthly statement from your
electric company and getting a check
instead of a bill!—DD