Fastest Way To A Smaller Energy Bill: Use Less Energy

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Want to help the country save a quick million barrels of oil a day? Drive 5% less. Slow down. Inflate your tires.

Those three steps would reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1.3 million barrels a day immediately, according to the Alliance to Save Energy, a conservation group running an efficiency campaign backed not only by environmental groups but also the auto and oil industries.

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Comments

[robinhood2]

Many retail businesses could cut their air conditioning bills significantly just by closing their front doors when they have their air conditioning on. Is it really necessary for stores like Apple Computer to air condition the street as well as its store in Walnut Creek, CA? How many thousands of stores are guilty of such waste throughout the country every hot summer day? Not only are stores like Apple wasting energy, they could also trigger rotating blackouts on particularly hot days. The supply of electricity is not unlimited, especially in states like California, which went through a period of electricity shortages around 2000.

[sheila]

Point of use PV panels, micro-wind and a plug-in hybrid. Clean, free electricity and "gas." If we could only get our government to work for US instead of Big Energy, we could all have very affordable (profitable!) generation systems on our homes which would reduce global warming, increase the efficiency and reliability of the grid, earn a modest financial income from oversizing/selling power to the grid, prevent large-scale wilderness obliteration (solar and wind farms are as bad as coal for this), prevent our homes from being stolen via eminent domain, prevent energy market manipulation (see current gas prices, and Enron 2001 in CA), and FINALLY start a free market, instead of an energy monopoly, fully subsidized by US!

[RememberTheAlamo]

Hi Sheila,

Sounds good!

How is Big Energy in the way?

What would we need the government to do for us that we couldn't do on our own?

Curious

[joebaggadonuts]

1. Tax incentives to make the up front costs bearable before the price of energy makes it completely unaffordable.

2. A law requiring energy grid owners to buy small amounts of electricity from home producers at market prices.

These two things we can't do without government intervention.