Conservation:

Conservation \ n  planned management of resource

The key to energy independence. If you have any desire to be energy independent, in whole or in part, the place to start is with energy conservation. Today's "modern conveniences" may require less effort but they do require more energy. In North America, and the US especially, we like big.  Big cars, big homes, big TVs. There are no economies of scale with these.  They take more resources to produce, more to operate, and more space in the landfill.

OK. So you are interested but not sure what to do first. The answer to that is simple - use less. Look at your current utility bill. There is likely a column that notes your daily KWHr (kilo watt hours, or a thousand watts consumed in an hour's time) electric usage. An average US home may use 7 to 12 KWHrs per day.  An efficient home might use 3 to 5 KWHr. Set a personal or household goal of reducing your usage by a 1/3rd. This  translates into immediate savings, money you can set aside for a possible first renewable purchases.

Here's a hint about conservation - beware of parasitic loads. A parasitic load, our current White House resident calls them "vampire" loads just so he doesn't use a renewable energy term, is one where power is being consumed for no useful purpose. There everywhere! If your TV turns on from a remote control it is using power while it waits from you to come home. The clock in your microwave is using power while you're looking at this page. Any device you have that plugs into the wall with a small "cube" transformer is using power even when the device is "off".

A study done by the DOE in the early '90's estimated that 12% of all the electrical power generated in the United States was wasted, their word, by inefficient parasitic loads. These convenience items are really just another indicator of how far we have gone around the bend with conspicuous consumption.  A study done in 1991 determined that parasitic loads in North America consume the equivalent energy production of Greece, Peru, Vietnam, and the Lesser Antilles combined.

What to do. To start, find the little buggers. Then determine which you just have to have - like maybe the baby monitor. Then go out an get power strips and/or outlet switches (these are small switches with plug prongs on one side and a receptacle on the other). Get your TV, stereo (anything with a remote) on them. How many clocks do you have, or need, in your kitchen? John and Carol went so far as to remove the back from their new stove and cut the wire to the clock. Be ruthless. These things are wasting your money!

Energy efficiency is something of a joke in America today. Most all frost free refrigerators use HEAT to keep the frost down (open the door and feel the edge!). You pay for this twice; first in added electric usage and, second in having to run the fridge longer to off-set this heat contribution. Look into replacing your major appliances with real efficient ones.

Last note on lighting - don't forget to let the sun in! Do you have a room without windows? Do you turn lights on whenever you're in there? Look into sky lighting. A nifty product is the Solatube. This is an easy to install, for the do-it-yourselfer, simple way to light a room. A 10" unit will illuminate a 150 square foot area for about $300.00 US. That's a one time cost. This isn't the only manufacturer making this line of products. Look at our Installing a Solatube Feature article to see details of an installation.

Water!  Our most precious resource, outside our children, and we're headed for a world-wide shortage of fresh clean water. If you live on a well you also must use energy to bring that water up to the surface for use.

You can take that gray and rain water idea a step further by putting in a cistern. This way you can store thousands of gallons. A word of caution: gray water is just that, gray. It typically comes from a sink, shower or laundry room. NEVER the toilet. That's black water. Never put black water on the surface of your lawn or garden. Never drink grey water or feed it to your animals. For more on Gray Water, check out or Resources page.

Soaker hoses, drip irrigation and timers (have you tried the mechanical windup type?) all can help you conserve water. A neat trick if you're on a well is to run something along with your garden watering (especially if you use soakers), like the dishwasher. It doesn't save you any water but it does save power. The well is delivering both "loads" while only using power once.

Other ways to save water? Simple, don't let it run. Turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth, washing dishes by hand, washing the car, Etc. It takes a bit of practice to break those old habits. The reward is well worth the effort.

Our friends at Gardens Alive! have a great book on lawns. It's called Lawns Without Chemicals and sells for 50 cents. We mention this for two reasons: 1) your lawn can be a major consumer of water, and, 2) if you're on a well you don't want to be putting chemicals on it (they leach thru the ground). One of the most important bits of advise in this little book is don't water your lawn so much. Get a copy and read about this. We did, and we're really happy with the results.

One of our favorite organic gardening periodicals recently wrote about well water. A few interesting tid-bits we picked-up were that well water decreases composting time due to the higher levels of minerals in it (also helps you grow greener gardens) and you shouldn't use it for canning for the same reason.

A word about water saving shower heads, toilets, etc. These are little more than feel-good inconveniences. This year, all the major toilet manufactures began marketing 2+ gallon per flush models rather than the 1.2 none mandated by law. Why? Because the 1.2's need to be flushed two or more times per use! Not exactly saving water are they? The law has been rescinded.

The lesson in this is simple - don't buy gadgets that do the 'thinking' for you. Use the best tool ever invented, your head. A few lifestyle changes add-up to a lot more that a 2.5 gallon per minute shower head is ever going to save.

For those of you interested in water storage, several companies are selling clean, new, 55 gallon barrels with hand pumps for under $100.00 US. Search for Y2K on the web (yes, most of those sites are still up). There is a nifty product out called ION that is a water additive. It doesn't taste funny and will keep 55 gallons bacteria and virus free for a year. Search for +ION+water+ on the web.

Look at the Resources page for links to more information and organizations that can help.