The Real Key to Energy Savings

You hear a lot of talk about alternative energy sources like solar power, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal energy.

And while they truly do a lot more good for the environment than fossil fuels, they’re simply nowhere close to being able to supply the energy we currently use.

Sean Comey, Senior Advisor for Chevron, said in a 2019 article, ”[T]he International Energy Agency (I.E.A.) projects global energy demand will rise more than 25 percent by 2040, driven by population growth and rising incomes. Even in the I.E.A.’s most aggressive low-carbon scenario, oil and natural gas will meet approximately half of that demand.”

The other problem with alternative energy is that we don’t have effective ways to store it at scale yet. So, that means that brownouts and blackouts would be much more frequent if we tried to make the switch happen at scale right now.

Alternative energy is helping. It’s making a dent in our energy use. And eventually, it will replace the current forms of energy which cause great harm to our environment.

But in the meantime, what do we do?

It could turn out that catastrophic weather problems, flooding, and other environmental disasters happen and cause massive damage.

Since We Can’t Wait, It Makes Sense to Change Your Energy Use

While you could say that alternative energy technologies not being fully developed to support current energy demands is the problem, it’s wiser to say that how you’re using energy is the real problem.

It’s doable to cut your energy use by 80-90%. But if everyone reduced their energy use by just 50%, the environmental crisis would come into check.

You can certainly still switch to alternative energy, such as solar power, if you want. But first, it makes sense to reduce your consumption.

With that in mind, here’s some of the ways that you can reduce your energy use right now without sacrificing any of your comfort:

1. Program your programmable thermostat (many American’s don’t)
2. Reduce your hot water temperature to 120 degrees (recommended by the US Department of Energy) because the default is 140
3. Unless you need to remove oil or grease, wash your clothes in cold water
4. Unplug all electronics when not in use or plug them into a power strip and turn it off
5. Turn off any lights when not in use
6. Only run your dishwasher when full
7. Change your air filters

Yeah. All that stuff’s pretty easy, right? And none of those steps hurt your personal comfort one bit.

Changing your behavior is the most sustainable energy-saving measure you can take. Alternative energy will probably become efficient enough to support however you want to use energy someday.

But that day isn’t here yet!

And you can easily do your part to avert unnecessary harm to the earth and potentially disastrous consequences in the meantime by following the simple steps in this post.