realitycheq:
All of those energy saving tips you give are great for reducing your electric bill, however they won’t reduce consumption of oil significantly. The US electric power comes from sources other than oil, (except 2%).
49% Coal
20% Natural gas
2% oil
the rest is hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear.
One of the largest consumer of refined oil products is the air travel sector. Getting rid of the private jets used by Congress would save far more than me buying a smaller car. I’m not saying we should get rid of Air Force One, but Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, and Harry Reid, et al, ain’t that important.
There are many ways we could trim our appetite for oil, I say the best place to start is at the top. Starving our farmers of diesel to run the tractors that grow our food is probably not the best way to go. Depriving the nations OTR truckers of fuel would bring the country’s economy to a standstill.
Percentage-wise, getting an extra 5 MPG from personal vehicles would help, but not that much. A really big savings could be had, very quickly, if the vast oil consuming northeast could be converted to natural gas for home heating instead of oil. About 40% of Massachusetts homes use oil heat. More than 963,000 households in the state use home heating oil. In Maine, one of the nation’s coldest states, four out of five households heat with oil.
Home heating oil is basically #1 diesel fuel, just imagine converting all those tons of oil back into our transportation industry. What a savings that would be.
