Energy Savings Tips

Laundry Appliances

Avoid washing partial loads. Wait until you meet machine capacity.

Pre-soak dirty clothes, probably the night before. Avoid having to run the washing machine twice.

Wash heavy and light weight laundry separately. Heavy laundry requires different setting.

Electric clothes drier uses large amount of energy to dry clothes. Practice using the old-fashioned clothes line. Clothes get a fresh sunshine smell in fine weather.

Iron clothes during off-peak hours (before 9 a.m. and after 9 p.m.). This helps lessen the demand for electricity during peak hours.

Do all the ironing at one time, say once or twice a week.

Dampen clothes moderately. Excessive moistened clothes take longer to iron.

Turn off flat iron shortly before ironing the last piece. It will stay hot just enough to finish the job.

Aircon

If you leave the room for a long time, turn off your air conditioner. It uses less current to bring the temperature down again when you return, than if you left it running.

Turn off unused lights and other appliances that give off heat. Lighting alone accounts for as much as one half of the load of their air conditioning unit. Use low wattage but efficient lamps.

Change incandescent to fluorescent. An incandescent bulb is much better a heater than a light source. Almost 80% of the electricity used to light it up is converted into heat.

Use a small electric fan to spread cooled air around your room. This prevents the cooled air from "layering" and settling to the floor.

Choose an air conditioning unit with high "Energy Efficiency Ratio" (EER). High EER has a more efficient motor than the one with lower EER, and consumes less electricity.

Refrigerators and Freezers

Defrost refs and freezers regularly. More than ¼-inch ice build up of frost puts up an extra load on the compressor motor.

Check refrigerator if it is not losing its cool because of a leaking gasket. Test the gasket by closing the door on a peso bill. If the bill slips out when you pull on it, either the gasket needs a replacement or the door needs adjusting.

Frequent opening and closing of refs contributes to frost or ice build-up and causes compressor motor to work overtime. As much as possible, keep door closed.

Taken from The Philippine Star

Compact Fluorescent Lamps In Focus

Energy savings

CFLs use 70 to 80 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs. The typical incandescent lamp wastes 90 percent of the energy it uses since it produces heat rather than light. A 100-watt incandescent lamp may be replaced with a 20 to 23-watt CFL. Although CFLs may appear different than the common incandescent bulbs, CFLs fit most standard fixtures found in homes today. The screw-in base is the same for both lamps.

Long Life

CFLs last approximately 6,000 tto 10,000 hours. This is 8 to 13 times longer than the life of an incandescent lamp with an expected life of 750 to 1,000 hours.

Warm Light

Most CFLs have improved color rendition. The light is of a warm tone that is almost identical to that of an incandescent lamp. Most people can't tell the difference.


Savings chart - Quality CFL vs. quality incandescent bulb




Taken from The Philippine Star

Wave

a mechanism of energy transfer through a medium. The origin of the wave is vibrating particles, which store and release energy while their mean position remains constant as it is only the wave that travels. Waves can be classified as being either LONGITUDINAL WAVES, e.g. sound, or TRANSVERSE WAVES, e.g., light, depending on the direction of their vibrations. There is a basic wave equation that related the wavelength (λ), frequency(f), and speed (c) of the wave as c = fλ. All forms of waves have the following properties: diffraction; interference; reflection and refraction. ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES have all of these properties but differ from ordinary waves, such as water waves, in that they can travel through a vacuum, e.g. outer space.

Taken from Dictionary of Science

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A wave is a disturbance that propagates through space and time, usually with transference of energy. A mechanical wave is a wave that propagates or travels through a medium due to the restoring forces it produces upon deformation. There also exist waves capable of traveling through a vacuum, including electromagnetic radiation and probably gravitational radiation. Waves travel and transfer energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium (that is, with little or no associated mass transport); they consist instead of oscillations or vibrations around almost fixed locations.

Taken from Wikipedia

Joule

the unit for all ENERGY measurements. It is the mechanical equivalent of heat, and one joule (J) is equal to a force of one NEWTON moving one metre, i.e. 1J = 1Nm. It is named after James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), a British physicist who investigated the relationship between mechanical, electrical and heat energy, and, from such investigations, proposed the first law of THERMODYNAMICS, the conservation of energy.

Taken from Dictionary of Science

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The joule (symbol J), named for James Prescott Joule, is the derived unit of energy in the International System of Units. It is the energy exerted by the force of one newton acting to move an object through a distance of one metre. In terms of dimensions:

One joule is defined as the amount of work done by a force of one newton moving an object through a distance of one metre. Other relationships are:

• The work required to move an electric charge of one coulomb through an electrical potential difference of one volt; or one coulomb volt (C·V). This relationship can be used to define the volt;

• The work required to continuously produce one watt of power for one second; or one watt second (W·s) (compare kilowatt hour). This relationship can be used to define the watt.

Taken from Wikipedia

Quantum

(plural quanta) a small amount or unit of electromagnetic radiation which can be thought of as a particle of energy.

Taken from Dictionary of Science

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In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction. An example of an entity that is quantized is the energy transfer of elementary particles of matter (called fermions) and of photons and other bosons. The word comes from the Latin "quantus", for "how much." Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized", referred to as "quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete numerical values, rather than any value, at least within a range. There is a related term of quantum number.

A photon, for example, is a single quantum of light, and may thus be referred to as a "light quantum". The energy of an electron bound to an atom (at rest) is said to be quantized, which results in the stability of atoms, and of matter in general.

As incorporated into the theory of quantum mechanics, this is regarded by physicists as part of the fundamental framework for understanding and describing nature at the infinitesimal level, for the very practical reason that it works. It is "in the nature of things", not a more or less arbitrary human preference.

Taken from Wikipedia

Absolute Zero

the temperature at which the particles that make up matter have no energy at all whether due to heat or motion. It is theoretically given the value of -273.15°Celsius (-459.67° Fahrenheit).

Taken from Dictionary of Science
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Absolute zero is the temperature at which entropy reaches its minimum value. As implied by the laws of thermodynamics, absolute zero cannot be reached by artificial or natural means because this would require a system to be fully removed from the rest of the universe. A system at theoretical absolute zero possesses quantum mechanical zero-point energy. While all molecular motion does not cease at absolute zero, the system does not have enough energy for transference to other systems. It is therefore correct to say that molecular energy is minimal at absolute zero.

By international agreement, absolute zero is defined as precisely 0 K on the Kelvin scale and as −273.15° on the Celsius scale. Absolute zero is also precisely equivalent to 0 R on the Rankine scale (same as Kelvin but measured in Fahrenheit intervals) and −459.67° on the Fahrenheit scale. Though it is not theoretically possible to cool any substance to 0 K, scientists have made great advancements in achieving temperatures close to absolute zero, where matter exhibits quantum effects such as superconductivity and superfluidity.

For the kinematics of molecules at absolute zero on a larger scale, which is easier to understand, see kinetic energy.

Taken from Wikipedia

Radiation

the giving out of energy from a source, which may be in the form of ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES (radio, light, X-rays, infrared rays, etc.), particles or sound waves.

Taken from Dictionary of Science

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In physics, radiation describes any process in which energy emitted by one body travels through a medium or through space, ultimately to be absorbed by another body. Non-physicists often associate the word with ionizing radiation (e.g., as occurring in nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, and radioactive substances), but it can also refer to electromagnetic radiation (i.e., radio waves, infrared light, visible light, ultraviolet light, and X-rays) which can also be ionizing radiation, to acoustic radiation, or to other more obscure processes. What makes it radiation is that the energy radiates (i.e., it travels outward in straight lines in all directions) from the source. This geometry naturally leads to a system of measurements and physical units that are equally applicable to all types of radiation. Some radiations can be hazardous.

Taken from Wikipedia