Residential Electricity
PlotWatt Labs: Boiling Four Cups of Water
Posted by Luke Fishback
In the last post, we had a real head-scratcher from a real tea-drinker. Francis wanted four cups of tea in an hour, and he wondered whether it’s smarter to boil all of that water at once in his electric kettle, re-heating it as necessary, or just to boil one cup of water from the tap each time.
Best Way to Boil Water
Posted by Luke Fishback
When it comes to home energy use, we often find that conventional wisdom is wrong, uselessly vague, or outdated. So, we recently set out to put a bit of experimental rigor into the question of making our morning cup of tea.
Upstream Watt Multiplier (1 Watt Saved > 1 Watt Generated)
Posted by Luke Fishback
In the world of “clean energy,” projects fall into one of two categories: increasing clean energy generation (supply) or decreasing energy consumption (demand). The energy generation side is developing technologies aimed at displacing the power plants we already have and building additional capacity for our ever-increasing energy appetites. Cool. On the other side, there are those of us focusing on more efficiently using the energy produced, no matter what the source. In this post, I’ll describe why these aren’t just two sides of the same coin.
Adopt a Home and Live Net Zero
Posted by Luke Fishback
A lot of the readers of this blog are energy-savvy “ecogeeks.” Most of you share our enthusiasm for energy efficient, conservation-oriented living. We love you for that. In this post I’m going to frame our individual efforts in the big picture and encourage you to spread the energy-saving love.