Save money and energy by conserving!

In today’s fast paced throw away materialistic American society the events unfolding due to the recent mortgage crisis are creating economic uncertainty. Some Americans are losing their jobs, taking in less pay, and anyone with investments tied to real estate or the stock market are seeing losses. At the same time gasoline prices are driving the cost of goods up. The average American has a lot of debt also with monthly payments that can be a large percentage of their income. With all of these financial woes present it is time Americans tighten up their budget and conserve to improve their quality of life. In this document I will show how to help out your bottom line by implementing a few easy conservation techniques.

• Set your thermostat comfortably low in the winter and comfortably high in the summer. Install a programmable thermostat that is compatible with your heating and cooling system.
  
• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
  
• Air dry dishes instead of using your dishwasher's drying cycle.
  
• Turn off your computer and monitor when not in use.
  
• Plug home electronics, such as TVs and DVD players, into power strips; turn the power strips off when the equipment is not in use (TVs and DVDs in standby mode still use several watts of power).
  
• Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater to 120° F.
  
• Take short showers instead of baths.
  
• Wash only full loads of dishes and clothes.
  
• Drive sensibly. Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gasoline.
  
• Look for the ENERGY STAR® label on home appliances and products. ENERGY STAR® products meet strict efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Toyota's new hybrid

West Ashley Toyota salesman Rodney Lewis announced today that Toyota has developed a Lithium Battery that will allow for their hybrid cars to get up to 80 miles per gallon. When the vehicle will become available is not yet known.

Simple Process of Coal Production and its Effects

Coal is a fossil fuel that has been formed over millions of years of heat and compaction of organic material under layers of rock. Miners use a process called mountain top removal to get to the coal. They strip the layers of mountain to get to the underlying coal. They then clean the raw coal through water and chemicals to remove unwanted materials until all that is left is good burning coal. They then load the coal onto a train and send it to a coal-fired energy plant. At the coal-fired energy plant turbines are used to produce energy by burning the coal, making electricity. The turbines are cooled by water so coal plants are usually by a lake or waterway.

The process of mining coal is detremental to the mountains as well as the people and wildlife that live around the mountains. I attended a meeting recently of the Sierra Club Lunz Group where Dave Cooper, a retired engineer who has dedicated his life to research and preservation of the Appalachin Mountains, showed a slideshow of how big coal is affecting the state of West Virginia. The mountains are drastically transformed by the coal group's excavation efforts. There are tremors and landslides due to the process. The wildlife in West Virginia has been adversely affected due to the changes occuring to their habitats. People are also affected. The by-products of cleaning the coal consist of water and chemicals termed "slurry". The slurry is pumped into the large craters in the mountains where the coal was previously removed. From there the slurry has been leaking back into the water table of West Virginia making water unsanitary. This water is causing many people to become sick and people are being diagnosed with cancer at an unusually high rate.

The effects of coal on West Virginia is one reason to use electricity efficiently. More than 80% of our energy here in South Carolina comes from coal and West Virginia supplies some of that coal. Our electricity here in South Carolina is some of the cheapest in the world right now but the environmental and human effects could prove to be a high cost in the future.

Blackbaud Stadium Goes Solar!

http://argandenergy.comBlackbaud Stadium Installs a 10.8kW PV System
Across the Cooper River in Charleston, SC, at the far end of Blackbaud Stadium, Andrew Bell squints at 60 new solar panels Argand crews put up the day before. "We live in a sunny place," says Bell, director of public relations and marketing for the Charleston Battery soccer team. "Why not have the sun beat down on solar panels?" Argand recently installed a 10.8kW, grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) system that includes 60 Evergreen 180W panels. The panels are pole mounted with each array consisting of 12 panels mounted on each pole. The system uses a Solectria 13kW inverter. CO2 reduction from the system is estimated at 7.5 tons.