After taking an easy first step in my quest to eliminate my power bill -- that is, switching to CFL bulbs -- it was time to learn more about where my opportunities lie.  To help answer that question, I needed to call in professional help.  Fortunately, my new friend TED was able to offer assistance.

TED is great with numbers.  With TED's help, I now know just how much electricity different devices use.    Not only that, but TED is available every day to guide me toward identifying the changes I should make to have the biggest impact.  Isn't TED a great friend?  Sure is, but actually TED isn't a person.  TED stands for The Energy Detective, and it is a device that mounts in the breaker panel and records the amount of total power being used by the service. 

The TED 5000 is a three part device.  The first item (the MTU) mounts in the breaker panel.  It is wired to one of the breakers and transmits a signal through the house wiring to the second item, the Gateway.  The Gateway plugs into any outlet and receives a pulse every second from the MTU.  The Gateway uses an ethernet cable to connect to your existing network router which allows you to view real time data on your computer.  The third item is a wireless display that displays real time power usage.  If you want to know how much power the dehumidifier in the basement is using, carry the wireless display with you and watch the change in wattage as you turn it on and off.

So, just how is this new toy going to help me reach my goal?  Because it's already been said better than I could say it, I'll let the words of the great Lord Kelvin answer the question.

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.

Below is a screen capture of the TED interface in action.

  

Following up from yesterday's post, I've been surprised at just how many light bulbs I have.  They're coming out of the woodwork -- literally and figuratively!

I had forgotten about the two lights on the outside of the garage.  They automatically turn on every evening at dusk and go off every morning at dawn.  I had been using two 60W bulbs, but I've now replaced them with 9W CFLs which are equivalent to 40W incandescents.  (I had tried 60W equivalents, but they were way too bright.  If I had left it that way, I would have expected Wise Men from afar to show up in December.  And, where would they keep their camels?  My neighborhood HMA would never allow that!)

Replacing these two bulbs reduced my power consumption from 120W to 18W.  Assuming they're on for 11 hours every day (more in the winter, less in the summer), this change saves me $3.50 each month.


To illustrate how ridiculously awesome this is, I will recoup my $2 expense for bulbs in just 17 days!  After that, I'm pocketing $3.50 each month, or $42 a year by replacing two light bulbs.  I'm beginning to feel like an idiot for not doing this sooner. 

I've now reduced my monthly power consumption by 5.5%.  The next thing I'll be looking at is the water heater.  It may be hiding quietly in the corner, but it's secretly devouring kilowatts right under our noses.

  

Last week I introduced my plan to leave the electric grid, and today I took my first cost-saving step:  I bought new CFL bulbs. 

The other day I talked to a friend who has invested in some really creative alternative energy sources, and now I'm inspired to leave no stone unturned.  I've decided that instead of starting big with some elaborate system that might pay for itself in 8 to 20 years, I'm going to start with the low-hanging fruit.  After dismissing the idea of replacing perfectly good incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, I ran the numbers and realized that I had underestimated just how much of a savings they represent.

Armed with my Consumer Reports ratings for the best CFL bulbs, I headed to Home Depot since that's where the top rated bulb is sold.  While I had expected them to cost $1.50 each, they were on sale for only $1 each!  I was only minutes into my quest, and I had already reduced my payback time by 33%.  I'm off to a good start.

The reason I hadn't gone CFL already was that I was convinced that I don't use many lights.  By many people's standards, that may be true; but that's not the way I should have been looking at it.  I should have been considering its impact on MY total electricity usage regardless of how that compares to the average household.

I replaced 11 bulbs, even some that I rarely ever use.  I estimated the number of hours each day that I use each of them and multiplied that by the number of Watts saved with each new bulb.  Speaking of Watts, this might be a good time to mention just how much more energy efficient CFL bulbs are.  They use about 20% as much power while producing the same amount of light. 

But how much does a light bulb really cost you?  If a 60W bulb is on for 8 hours each day, at my power cost of $0.104 per kWh, the cost is $0.05 per day.  You're saying, big deal!  That's nothing.  But I bet you have more than one light bulb at home.  You can probably find more than 10 bulbs really quickly.  I bet even the smallest homes have more than 20 bulbs.  I'll be conservative and say you have 5 bulbs (that are used 8 hours a day), which means the cost is now $0.25 per day.  In a 30 day month, your light bulb power cost is $7.50.  With CFLs, the cost is only $1.50 meaning that you've saved $6 on your monthly power bill.  If you spent $5 on 5 bulbs, then your new bulbs paid for themselves in less than a month!  Paybacks don't get much quicker than that.

I've taken the first step toward being independent from the power grid.  I estimate that this quick and painless change has reduced my bill by 2%.  It's not much, but there's no one thing that will accomplish my goal.  What's next?  I've not completely given up on solar, but I'll pursue more of the easy stuff first.  Stay tuned!

  

At work, a big part of my job is coming up with (and implementing) new ideas.  There's always a way that we can manufacture our products more efficiently, with higher quality, or more safely.  This may mean purchasing a new machine or rethinking how we're using existing equipment.  The challenge of becoming better at what we do is what provides me with a job.

That sounds great, but I could also choose to look at it the other way.  For every ten ideas that I have (or, that we have as the case may be), there may only be one idea that gets tried and becomes a success.  While a 10% success rate isn't a very good percentage to be proud of, there's not a lot that can be done about it.  Some things just don't work out like you planned.  The only thing you can do is try and generate more ideas so that you have an improved chance of one of them working out well.

The notes I've been writing here work the same way.  For every ten entries that I make, maybe one of them has been worth reading.  That's not so bad.  Except for a few minutes of my time, I'm not out anything for the other nine that were flops.  And if one of them was enjoyed by someone (or better yet, if I liked it!), then the needle on the dial of goodness has moved however slightly in the positive direction.

Another good example comes to mind:  Robin Williams.  Any time he's on a talk show or being interviewed, he goes through a marathon of throwing out jokes one after the other.  It's nonstop, usually faster than you can even comprehend.  It's amazing how fast his mind works.  If you take any one of those jokes by itself, it probably wouldn't be that funny.  But the way he puts them all out there in such a short period of time, all you have to do is find one that's funny and you start laughing.  And he delivers the jokes so fast that in just a few seconds you've heard four or five things that have you laughing until tears come to your eyes.

The moral of the story is, "The road to success is a big joke."  No, no, no, that's not right.  How about, "When the going gets tough, do a comedy standup routine."  No, that's no good either.  Maybe this, "Success is made up of 90% failure and 10% jokes from a hairy comedian."  Oh well, I give up.  Maybe if I came up with ten morals of the story, one of them would be worth closing out this note.  How about....!

  

The Olympics are underway, and that means we'll be seeing a few sporting events and lots of personal stories of overcoming adversity and making it to the winter games against the odds.  I realize some of these personal stories are necessary, but sometimes it seems like they're more prevalent than the sports.

The Olympics are about the athletes, and there are about 2,600 athletes participating from 82 countries.  That averages out to 32 athletes per country.  If every country brought 32 athletes to the games, each country would have an equal chance at receiving a medal.  The U.S. sent 215 athletes, Canada sent 206, Russia 177, Germany 153, and Switzerland 146.  While these five countries represent 6% of the nations, their 897 athletes represent 34% of all athletes.  Amazingly, 16 countries have only sent a single athlete.

As for the sports, I'm disappointed in NBC's broadcast schedule of the events.  My new favorite sport Curling isn't going to be shown on NBC at all!  (I know what you're thinking:  "Say it ain't so!")  It's true.  It's only going to be shown on CNBC or USA in the middle of the night.  Hasn't this ancient sport risen in popularity enough to be shown at least once for the entire country to see?  With this schedule, the only people who will get to see it are people with cable TV and Tivo.  I have neither.  Curling appears to be a simple sport where everyone says, "I could do that."  You just slide a rock across the ice and try to get it to stop in the middle of a circle.  I've never tried it for real, but it's addictive on the Nintendo Wii.  And you'd be amazed at how much strategy is involved.  Some day Curling will be respected for the great sport it is, but until then we'll just have to play the Nintendo version.

  

This week I had the opportunity to ride along with a Statesville Police officer as he patrolled the streets.  I can describe it with one word:  Awesome!  But, of course I won't stop with just one word. 

Beforehand, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it at all.  I mean, we would just be riding through the streets in the dark.  Maybe we would see someone run a stop sign or a red light.  How exciting could it really be?  I found out that it can be "very" exciting. 

While we experienced one very intense ordeal, even the stop sign runners were exciting.  When I'm driving my own pickup, I don't give a second thought when I see someone not come to a complete stop at an intersection.  But, when you're in a high-performance police car with a computer linked to the DMV and a confusing panel of buttons and lights on the console, it's an entirely different story. 

I was riding along with a very nice officer who patiently answered one stupid question after another as I tried to understand what was going on.  However, when we were in hot pursuit I made a point of being quiet and letting him concentrate on his job.  In the heat of the moment, he's flying down the street, reading a license plate, typing on his laptop, and communicating with dispatch, all while trying to remain safe for us and others on the street.

I've always respected an officer's bravery to approach an unknown driver who has or is suspected of committing a violation.  But, being in the car and watching the situation unfold in real time gave me an added appreciation for what these people do every day.  I spent four hours on patrol, and if I hadn't had to go to work the next morning, I would have spent all night.  Now, in the days after my ride, I find myself extra aware of cars with a burned out brake light or a driver who runs a red light.  I guess the experience hasn't ended yet.

It was a lot of fun, and at one point, sort of scary.  I won't go into the details, but it did involve the K9 unit and several officers.  Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to do it again soon.  In the meantime, drive safe, and if you do get pulled over, be nice to the officer.  He's out there doing his job to make the town safer for all of us.

  

Can it really be done?

I'm not sure that it can, but I'm going to start investigating ways to try.  I'm talking about saying goodbye to the power grid.  I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy receiving bills in the mail.  The power bill is my most costly bill, and for that reason I think it's time that we parted ways.

No, I'm not going to turn off all my lights and go live in a tree in the woods.  I want to see if this can be done without changing my lifestyle.  There's so much energy out there that's just begging to be harnessed.  The trick is being able to spot the best opportunities with the lowest cost. 

Solar panels?  The panels that are commercially available have a very high cost to energy output ratio.  And, they're always getting dirty.  It's not like you can just hop up on the roof with a Windex bottle and clean them like a window.  And, you know birds won't have the courtesy to wait until they've flown by to mark their territory.  Solar panels are inefficient and get dirty easily.

Wind power?  Yep, that's what I need:  a 300 ft windmill in my backyard like those on the Texas prairie.  I have investigated something smaller like the jellyfish wind appliance, but it's only a drop in the bucket.  While it can generate an estimated 40 kWh per month, that's only about 4% of my needs.  And, at an expected cost of $400, it would take me about 8 years to break even.  Is there anything better?

I don't know.  I have some crazy ideas, but I'm not sure how practical they are.  I recently read an article about someone who retrofitted a push lawnmower with solar panels that allow it to run for two hours with no gas!  Even though I'm talking about electrical power, that's the kind of story that inspires me to give this an honest effort.  Any time something moves, there's energy available.  The challenge is to convert useLESS energy into useFUL energy.  In the days to come I'll write about some of my ideas.

  

Statistics often help present things from a different perspective.  It's not necessarily a better perspective, but it's nice to have multiple views on an issue in order to form a sound opinion. 

This week Toyota has gotten a first hand look at statistics, and it ain't pretty.  For years now, surveys, consumer groups, and sales numbers have suggested that Toyota is one of the most respected auto companies when it comes to quality and getting a good car for the price.  However, a rare -- but potentially deadly -- problem with the gas pedal is threatening to ruin that reputation.

They're not sure how many instances there have been where the gas pedal stuck or returned to idle too slowly, but there have been only 2 or 3 confirmed cases.  If they look hard enough, maybe they'll find 20 or 30 cases.  Contrast that with the amount of cars on the road.  Since 2000 Toyota has averaged about 2 million U.S. auto sales each year, for a total of about 20 million cars over 10 years.  This recall involves 5.3 million vehicles!  That's more than a quarter of all vehicles they've sold in the U.S. since 2000.

One simple flaw in only one out of thousands of auto components is bringing down the quality leader of the auto industry.  I find that amazing!

Let's look at it another way.  There are hundreds of parts in a car that you don't want to fail while you're driving.  Toyota has provided maybe 99.999% perfection in all those parts, but 20 or 30 faulty gas pedals (i.e. that last 0.001%) has brought them down.

In the auto industry, you need to be successful more than 99.999% of the time.  While in baseball, if you hit the ball 30% of the time (batting .300) you're considered a great offensive player.  OK, maybe that's not fair since baseball really isn't a life and death event. 

What other issues require near perfect results?  How about emails, texting, and blog posts?  Taking perfection to the social level, consider how much damage could be done by only a few words.  You may be the greatest, nicest, most thoughtful person someone has ever known, but with only a few poorly chosen words in an email, you could erase all of that.  It's amazing how long it takes to build trust and respect, but how instantly it can be lost -- and that's true for your friend or your car company.

Mathematically speaking, that doesn't seem fair.  Our brains seem to be wired such that the positive slope of goodness over time is relatively flat, but when the slope becomes negative, the graph becomes a sheer cliff.  We can't change it so we just have to deal with it.  And as our favorite statistician Marge Innovera would say, "A slight deviation from the mean can cause a regression you'll later regret."  How true!

  

Music can be a powerful thing.  It can inspire, motivate, intrigue, or drive you crazy!  Two musical interludes are starting to get on my nerves.

The first is the music that accompanies the NC Lottery commercials.  It plays on both TV and radio, and I've heard just about enough of it.  On television, the commercial shows lots of Las Vegas or Broadway style dancers singing the praises of the lottery.  "It's amazing!"  Why is it that we find a piece of music terrific or terrible or nerve-racking?  This commercial is enough to drive me away from the lottery.

The other piece of music -- if you can call it that -- is a mystery to me.  It's hard to describe, but anyone who has watched a football game in the last year has certainly heard it.  It probably has no more than 20 notes in the entire riff.  It's some kind of synthesized bass sound that plays when they're trying to get the crowd going.  Even though I'm tired of hearing it, I desperately want to know what it is.  It must be new because I've only recently started hearing it.  How do you google a sound in your head?  I've tried, and it's not easy.  One day I'm going to figure out what it is and where it came from.  Until then, the beat goes on.

  

What's in a word?  That which we call a noun
By any other letters, could we not tweet?
Would not an adjective, were it not a type of descriptor,
Convey the look to the eyes and the smell to the nose
Without those vowels.  Verbs, gerunds, participles;
Were it not for thee, there would be no action.
Take all the letters and be free.

Or, something like that.

Over the last month I've heard the word "Clandestine" three times, but I never knew just what it meant.  Granted, I didn't put a lot of thought into the exact context the word was used, but I thought I had a vague idea of what it meant.  Maybe something like great, magnificent, significant, or grand.  It's something big; something people will be talking about tomorrow. 

Nope.  I was wrong.  Clandestine refers to something conducted in secrecy, or behind closed doors.  As in this sentence:

At 3am, the vegetarians held a clandestine gathering at the dinner table where they partook of leg of lamb and filet mignon.

The doors are open, and the secret's out.  I learned a new word.