ENERGY BOOMER

SAVE GAS MONEY WITH CRUISE CONTROL

Folks should think of their cruise control as a gas saving tool. Some folks never use their cruise control. Other folks use them just to reduce driver fatigue. The best way to use cruse control is to set it at or near the speed limit when you are driving down the highway and leave it alone.

The problem with humans is that we get acclimated to speed and unintentionally speed up over time.

Check yourself on this. When you first make the jump from city street speed to highway speed the highway speed limit seems to be plenty fast enough. But, after you have driven along for fifteen or twenty minutes you become used to that speed and are ready for more.

The same thing happens in reverse. When we exit the expressway the city street speed limit seems way too slow until our brain gets adjusted to it.

Using the cruise control helps keep our speed under control.

Keeping your speed under control is one of the best ways to reduce the money you spend at the gas pump. Fuel use goes up faster than the speed goes up. If I drive without the cruise control on my speed on expressways starts out at 65 and creeps up toward 80 unless I hold it down.

When I first started driving the expressway speed limit in Michigan was 80 and I liked it. Of course, we drove 5 over most of the time.

Back in the 1970’s, during the oil embargo days, the speed limit was dropped to a maximum of 55 all across the country to save fuel. I remember truckers would drive alongside each other at 55 and cause huge traffic backups on the expressways as a protest against the lower speeds.

We may be headed that way again if some of our elected representatives have their way.

Using cruise control on flat roads can save gas money, but in hill country, you can do better with it off. Cruise control systems have gotten better but they still tend to over accelerate going up hill. They keep increasing the throttle until the car speeds up to the set speed. When you control the speed, you can save gas by allowing the car to slow down on the up hill run and the get the speed back when you coast down the other side of the hill. That saves gas.

If your ride does not have cruise control, borrow one.

When I drive a car that does not have cruise control I pick out another truck or car that is going the speed that I want and follow them. As long as they keep a steady speed and I don’t pass them, my speed stays in control.

Expect to change to a different leader because the one you are following may be going somewhere you don’t want to go.

You save at the gas pump when you keep your speed down.

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WE ARE STILL STRIVING FOR INDEPENDENCE

We are not independent as long as our economy is influenced by forces from out side our borders. The worldwide high cost of energy is a topic that is in the news every day.

The welfare of our citizens is at risk every time there is another crisis in the Middle East. When we pay more for energy, there is less money available for food, health care and luxuries like arts and cultural events.

The economic unrest in our country is largely a self-inflicted problem. We are having a serious problem with inflation that is caused by the falling value of the dollar. High taxes are punishing success.

Lost jobs and falling wages are hitting many homeowners at the same time that the price of everything they need is going up. Some of my neighbors do not see a problem with putting foreign fuel into their foreign made SUV until their job is sent to a foreign country.

I know folks who have parked their cars and now ride a bicycle to work. Not because they want the exercise or want to save the environment, they do it to avoid buying expensive fuel for their car.

All these problems are occurring while we have sufficient resources here in the U.S. to keep our economy booming.

Parts of the following are excerpted from The Platform of The American People that can be found at AmericanSolutions.com.

We can solve our environmental and energy problems, faster and cheaper, with innovation and new technology than with more litigation, more taxes and more government regulation.

Entrepreneurs are more likely to solve America’s energy and environmental problems than bureaucrats.

To combat the raising cost of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, we support the Unites States using more of its own domestic energy sources, including the oil and coal it already has here in the U.S.

Our current dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security and our economic prosperity by making us vulnerable to dangerous dictatorships.

We should build more refineries in America to lower the cost of transportation fuel and reduce our dependence on foreign supplies.

We believe in using U.S. domestic energy sources such as coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska.

We should be offering tax credits for American business that develop new energy sources.

If we use technology, innovation and financial incentives, we can solve our own energy and environmental problems and have a thriving economy.

We each need to do our part in the fight to maintain our freedom, by conserving our resources, investing in our future and by voting for representatives who believe as we do.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

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SAVE ENERGY ON AIR CONDITIONING BY DOING AN INSIDE JOB

Today I happened look at one of our floor registers in our home and noticed that it was not fully open. Not only that, there was a tangle of extension cords on top of it helping to block the airflow.

One of the ways we can waste our money on air conditioning is to choke off the airflow. A dirty filter or a register that is not fully open makes the air conditioner run longer than needed to get its job done. Anything that reduces the flow costs you money.

Oops, busted says the Energy Boomer. The register that I am talking about is the one located about two feet behind me as I am typing this.

I took the register up and played with the dampers that were obstructing the airflow. Then I looked down into the hole in the floor into the ductwork. An enterprising spider had constructed a web so well that it trapped dust and dirt just like an air filter. I had an extra filter that was slowing down the airflow.

After vacuuming out the ductwork, untangling the extension cords and fixing the register I could feel the improvement in the amount of air flowing out of that register.

Take a few minutes to check all the air registers in your house. Clear the magazines and newspapers away from them. Move the furniture a little to clear the airflow. Don’t forget to do the same for the return air registers too. Take the register covers off. Then poke the crevice tool on your vacuum cleaner into the ductwork as far as you can to clean it out.

Sounds like a lot of work on a hot day, but it is an inside job where your AC is keeping you cool. Remember its may be work but it will save your money on the electric bill.

The better the airflow the lower your electric bill will be. It is ok to block a register in an unused room in the winter, but I do not recommend it in hot weather. The more air flow through your air conditioning system the better it will do its job.

Click this link for a SPECIAL REPORT: HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON AIR CONDITIONING

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WHY IS MY ELECTRIC BILL GOING UP?

If you live where the electric company is allowed to increase their prices, I’ll bet your electric bills are going up. If you have not seen an increase in your electric bill you will. There are two big reasons for the increase.

The first is the price of coal is jumping due to international demand.

The price of coal has more than doubled in the last twelve months. It has gone fro less than $50 a ton to more than $100 a ton on the futures markets. The price of oil is hogging the focus of the news media but the price of coal is just as much of a problem.

This big jump in coal prices is the result of the growing economy in China and other places around the globe. As of 2008, China has stopped exporting coal and is now importing coal for making electricity.

They are rapidly moving away from oil as a fuel for making electrical power. China is importing record-breaking amounts of coal from Australia and other sources. This activity in the coal markets is pushing up coal prices worldwide.

Some strange things are happening here in the USA. Coal mining has become a boom industry again. At the same time, we are importing some coal from South America. Coal has become a worldwide high value commodity.

The increasing price of coal is driving the cost of making electricity up.

The second is the price of natural gas is unusually high for this time of year.

Natural gas is the fuel of choice for meeting the peak electrical demand of air conditioning season across the USA. Natural gas prices are high now and expected to stay high through all of 2008.

The electric generating companies are being hit with higher fuel prices now for both coal and natural gas. If you use electricity, you can expect to be paying more for it. It may not be in your next bill but higher power prices are coming to your home and to where you work.

That is not good news. Higher electric prices hit every home and business.  Higher electrical rates will make everything more expensive to make and add to the overhead of all businesses.

Hang on to your wallet, the big bills are coming to get you. Higher electric bills make it even more important to reduce your use.

Click this link for a SPECIAL REPORT: HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON AIR CONDITIONING

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HALOGEN LIGHTS ARE TOO HOT TO TAKE HOME

I was wandering around in one of the big “We Sell Everything” stores while my wife was shopping for fabric. I ended up looking at light bulbs. It may seem to be an odd way to spend part of Saturday afternoon, but remember I am an energy engineer. I read the labels on light bulbs quite often.

I keep hoping that I will find a supply of new LED lamps that I can just screw in to my existing light sockets at home. But, they don’t make them yet.

The store had a wide selection of various light bulbs including many halogen bulbs. I keep looking at the halogen lighting products because the sure do put out a lot of bright light. They are great for car headlights being bright and lasting a long time. They may appear to be a good choice to get the lighting job done at home and save money.

I do not like them.

In my opinion, they have two problems that keep them out of my home.

The first is they are great for spot lighting, but because their light is so focused in a beam that they do not do a good job of lighting up a whole room. So, if you want to light up a room you need several of them aimed at different parts of the room. Because you need more of them to do the job, they don’t save money.

The bigger problem is that they are so hot that they are a fire hazard. If you use them, you need to take precautions to keep paper and other burnable items well away from them.

If you are going to use them, keep them limited to task lights. A good example is in a reading lamp.

The most efficient home lighting is fluorescent lighting or old fashion incandescent lights with a dimmer switch.

We use our dining room table as a craft work table some of the time. When my wife needs bright light for needlework or I need it to glue something back together, that I broke, we can turn it up. We still can turn it down for a candle light dinner.

Of course, the real energy saver lamps are the ones that are turned off.

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