- Attachments : Cell Phone recycle pile.
- The most abundant source of energy in the United States is not what you think it is. It is in the form of conservation and efficiency of the electricity we are already using. A focused effort on innovation and continuous improvement of energy efficiency would grow our energy independence faster that any other resource. Use American ingenuity over foreign oil. Efficiency is the low hanging fruit that we should be taking immediate advantage of.
- There are over 170,000,000 chargers in California. An average of 4 chargers per household in the state.
- The electric chargers we are using today are cheap and inefficient. If they were replaced with more efficient charges we would save Californians $306,000,000 per year in electric bills. That is enough electricity to power 350,000 new homes.
- Today’s electric capacity cost us $350 per kilowatt-hour. To add new electric capacity at today’s prices it would cost us $900 per kilowatt-hour.
- Duh!
- Let’s save more of the $350 / Kwh that we have now before buying more of the expensive stuff. Here is California’s growth in the consumption of electricity
-------------------- 1960 ----------------- 55,000,000 million watt hours
-------------------- 1980 ----------------- 170,000,000 million watt hours
-------------------- 1990 ----------------- 220,000,000 million watt hours
-------------------- 2007 ----------------- 260,000,000 million watt hours
- That looks pretty bad. An enormous increase in electricity consumption. But, population has grown. New technologies using electricity are ubiquitous. Actually, California is doing much better than everybody else. California’s annual per capita consumption has increased at 8% per year. The United States in total has increased 54% per year. Californian’s consume 40% less energy per person than the national average.
---- Million watt-hours per capita ------California -------- USA ---------------
-------------------- 1960 --------------------------- 4 ---------------- 4 --------------------
-------------------- 1970 --------------------------- 7 ---------------- 7.5 --------------------
-------------------- 1980 --------------------------- 7 ---------------- 9 --------------------
-------------------- 1990 --------------------------- 7 ---------------- 11 --------------------
-------------------- 2007 --------------------------- 7 ---------------- 13 --------------------
- The battery charges deliver 2,900 billion watts of useable electricity, the rest is waste.
- That is 36% efficiency. We have the technology to produce transformers and charging systems that are 80% efficient by comparison.
- Battery chargers for portable devices started appearing in the market in 1989. Lithium battery chargers arrived in 1991. Today California has 170,000,000 million of them. Converting these to efficient chargers would reduce CO2 emissions by 1.8 million metric tons. That is equal to 138,000 cars per year. Efficient chargers would reduce peak demand by 361 million watts and save us 2,038 million watt-hours per year. ( figured at 14 cents per Kwh ).
- There are over 2 dozen innovative ways these efficiency are gained. Here is a few examples:
- Chargers would turn transformers off automatically as soon as it reaches a full charge. Full-wave rectifiers would be used instead of half-wave rectifiers. “Switch-mode” power supplies would be used instead of “linear” power supplies.
- California is passing new laws and regulations to implement these efficiency standards ( AB32). Every decision we make in our lives has two parts: “ what to do” and “ how to do it”. The 1st is effectiveness” , the 2nd is efficiency. The 1st is doing the right things, the 2nd is doing things right. In my opinion, our politician are doing things all wrong.
- Politicians and Federal Departments should be limited to these how’s: communication, education, facilitation, and marketing. Instead, they want to govern with mandates. Constantly expanding laws and regulations. That is NOT how to do it. Give manufactures the tools, in standards and test procedures. Use competition to get a “ green sticker” certification. Market and educate consumers on the benefits and the wisdom of a green sticker purchase. Show the paybacks that come with smarter purchases. Use the laws to punish manufacturers that misbehave and misuse the system. There should be a price paid for lying. Let the free market implement the “what’s” that are important.
- Instead politicians use the laws they pass to benefit the campaign donors that give them the power to pass laws. Regulations with bias and loopholes create abuse and fraud. Enforcement is discriminatory and unfair for those not cronies to lawmakers who need to get elected. Announcements will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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(1) See Review #1188 - Electric Energy - How to Power our Future.
(2) Review #739 - Standby Power.
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707-536-3272, Monday, January 30, 2012- The battery charges today consume 8 billion watt-hours per year
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