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54 comments on Conservation ads on TV?

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Leanan on November 11, 2005 - 11:22am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I saw one.  I think.  I wasn't watching NBC.  I'm pretty sure I saw it on CBS.  (Yes, I admit it: I watch Survivor.  Call it a guilty pleasure.)

They showed a family.  Closeups of the kids' feet, in warm slippers.  They wanted people to lower their thermostats five degrees.  The sponsor sounded like a trade organization to me, though I don't remember the name.  

 

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Donal on November 11, 2005 - 12:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We tape and watch Survivor (so no spoilers, please), and I found it amusing to see a Jeff Probst speaking at the ASPO conference.  I'm sure he gets a lot of jokes.  I used to get a lot of Steely Dan comments so I can sympathize with his plight.

Ianqui, why not leave this up as a weekend open thread?

As far as winter heating, our pellet stove vendor came by to fix a stuck rod, and advised my wife that replacing our natural gas with an electric water heater would save us money.  Again, I'm surprised because I thought NG was more efficient at heating than electricity.  

We are considering terminating our gas service because we don't run the furnace but are still billed $25 to $30 a month just for the service charge and to heat water.  I plan to put in roof-mounted solar water heating with a small electric heater for backup.

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Engineer-Poet on November 11, 2005 - 10:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
NG is more efficient than electricity.  OTOH, electricity generated from coal or nukes or hydro can be cheaper than NG.
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Everett on November 12, 2005 - 12:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think that electric water heaters are more efficient than NG heaters in the sense that a larger fraction of the energy that you buy becomes heat energy in your water.  NG heaters have a chimney and/or vent where some heated air will escape and not heat water.

If the price per kWh of electricity and of NG are comparable, you will get more hot water for your money with an electric heater.

Assuming NG is $12 per 1000 cubic feet, that is about $0.04 per kWh.  That is less than half the cost of electricity, so an NG water heater would need to be fairly inefficient to cost the same as an electric heater.

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Oil Trader on November 12, 2005 - 2:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Only if you live right next to the power station otherwise the loss thru the transmission lines are way higher than burning the NG in your home. Up to 50% loss thu an electrical distrubution system.
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Glenn on November 12, 2005 - 1:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That's the power of local distributed energy generation. We should have a goal of making smaller geographic areas responsible for a more significant percentage of their electrical power generation.

How about if each county or congressional district needed to provide at least 50% of its own electrical power? I think that would transform debates about conservation and the NIMBYism around wind power generation.

Each community would have to figure out the best way of getting to that number - if you want coal powered electrical plants, fine, but you have to live next to it. If you don't like coal or wind, then you'll just have to figure out how to lower demand.

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Engineer-Poet on November 13, 2005 - 1:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
50% losses?  Here are the 2003 figures:
Net generation, 3,883 billion kilowatthours.
Total retail sales, 3,488 billion kilowatthours.

You can't sell your losses, and the losses (worst-case) are about 10%.

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