Is Wind Power Really Too Efficient? Click Here.

As many of you know already, October is energy awareness month. For me, their is an added notation because of my wind turbine project.

Things are looking good for commercial release. In the near future, you may be able to get your hands on a totally silent, high output, low RPM wind turbine that will work in many conditions a traditional turbine will not. I have recorded significant power with this turbine along the side of my house. I have recorded even more in the open space of my yard. Cross your fingers for me, it won't be long now.

Keeping with the energy theme, the AWEA has a recent publication that sites a change in incentives coming for micro turbines like mine. You may be able to take a 30% tax write off for the cost of a turbine during 2011-2016. This would really help all of us too.

I was made aware of a good link for learning about appliance efficiencies and how to get the most from them. I have written about these items here before but a nicely laid out site is always a great tool. You can visit the Appliance Help site by clicking here.

Remember, the best way to save energy is not to spend it. If you can line dry or hang clothes, go for it. If the dishes can drip dry, let them. If you can wear that pair of pants a second time, do it. All these things add up.

I'm sure if you are able to read this, you understand the job of soap. However, have you ever thought about how it does its job? Soap attracts dirt and breaks the surface tension of water allowing it to stick to surfaces and rinse away the offending material.

With this basic understanding, you can see why leaving soap behind when cleaning a spot on the floor will lead to an even bigger spot in the near future. It is important to rinse the location thouroughly.

Have you considered plain old hot water for the spot? I find that many small spots are caused by my kids spilling juice or water and the dirt from our shoes is then attracted to the location. Most of the time, using a bit of hot water and a cloth, followed by time to dry will get rid of the spot. Using hot water is much greener for the environment than chemicals and is a good first choice.

For tougher spots, I add a little rubbing alcohol to the hot water. The alcohol breaks the surface tension of the water, making it penetrate the spot and then it evaporates quickly leaving no residue to attract new dirt.

As a last resort, I use soap in the cleaning water. However, I make the solution weak and I rinse it well.

Next time you need to clean a spot, consider wheather or not it really calls for a chemical attack.

It wasn't that long ago that paper towels were not common. The idea of throwing away a towel after every use has become common place in my own lifetime. I don't know when, but what I can tell you is my grandmother didn't even keep them in the kitchen. If your experience is similar to mine, you probably can't think of a household right now that doesn't have a roll easily accessible around the kitchen counter or under the sink.

We need to change our thinking.

For routine cleaning like wiping down the kitchen counter, you can use a sponge or a kitchen towel. Not only do reusables like this help save trees, they save you money in the end. My preference for cleaning up spills is a microfiber cloth. Microfiber is very absorbent and is available in the big box stores cheap. There is a trick to making microfiber perform like a paper towel, DO NOT use fabric softener when you wash it. In fact, whatever type of cloth you might decide to use will absorb better if you skip the softener.

For windows, my first choice is newspaper if you subscribe. Remember the paper can still be recycled after cleaning windows. If you don't subscribe to a print newspaper, do what I do and use a microfiber cloth. Microfiber works really well. I can clean about 10 windows with one washcloth size towel before it is too wet to do a good job. To avoid lint, don't wash them with other laundry, get enough that you can save up a load of just microfiber rags and dish towels.

On the go, try to minimize your paper towel use too. How many towels does it really take to dry your hands? Try just one or two towels, and use the whole thing out to the edges. You may be surprised at how well they work. In fact, you might find that just one will remove enough "big drips" that your hands will air dry the rest of the way in just a minute or two.

My favorite TV personality, Alton Brown, is always talking about multitaskers in terms of kitchen appliances. This line of thinking applies other places too. Multitasking items help avoid excess production and transportation. This reduces the overall impact on the environment. As an experiment, try keeping a few rags folded neatly next to the paper towels, you may find a dozen ways to avoid using paper and discover what a great multitasker a good cloth rag or towel is.

By the way, I think Kleenex is going the wrong way with their new hand towels. If you washed your hands, then you are removing clean water from your hands. They want you to think that a damp towel might be full of germs or not remove enough moisture to dry another set of hands. I am personally amazed the product even hit the market.

I don't know how old my average reader is, I assume at this point we are all adults. However, being an adult doesn't guarantee that you will remember the oil crunch of the 1970's. You may remember that you were only allowed to pump gas for your car on certain days, if your license plate number was even you could only purchase on an even numbered day and the same for odd plates and days. From what I found on Wikipedia, this was only implimented in 3 states, California was not on the list, but I remember it. Maybe, local legislature adopted the policy, I was too young to pay attention to that type of detail. The reason I bring this up is that a UK government minister has been doing some homework and is predicting another crunch between 2011 and 2015.

More specifically, the U.K. government is predicting the cost of crude oil to double by some point inside that time frame. From the article:

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I recently considered six reports written by groups as wide ranging as UK business leaders, the US military, insurers Lloyds, Kuwait University engineers, the German military and an Australian think tank. Taken as a whole they refer to aging oilfields, oil industry underinvestment, the limited output of unconventional sources such as oil sands, increasing global demand and the possibility of the world being close to peak oil, the geological natural maximum output. The point is, you don't have to believe in peak oil theory to see a coming oil supply crunch. These reports didn't all agree on the issue of peak, but nevertheless pointed to a supply crunch between 2011 and 2015.

... the International Energy Agency is forecasting record world oil demand, and warning that the "era of cheap oil is over."
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I have not seen anything so bold or specific regarding the U.S., however this information is equally important for us. Oil is a natural resource with a limited supply, so this information should be taken as a warning. We need to continue to find better sources of transportation and minimize our use of disposable items and plastics.

Even more importantly, we need to focus on renewable energy, like wind and solar. With an abundance of alternative energy, charging an electric car or truck should become cheap and practical.

To read the original article, follow the related link below.