Prince Of Darkness Saves The World
And Makes America Great Again
What percentage of electricity is wasted?
We waste about two-thirds of the roughly 100 quads (quadrillion Btu) of energy we consume each year.
Let’s not quibble about the number. That would add to our waste of energy.
Look at that! Just looking at electricity usage, we Americans use about 13,000 Kilowatt-hours per year. That’s like turning on your 1500 Watt (1.5 kWh) hair dryer and leaving it on all year, non-stop. (8667 hours/24 hours per day=361 days).
Not recommended. Even if the hair dryer doesn’t burn out, your hair will become very brittle, regardless of how the electricity is generated.
This POD (Prince Of Darkness) suspects that we all have a feel-good reaction to the substitution of “clean” energy for “dirty.” This is ill-founded since the “green” energy has merely been added to the total without any reduction in other sources. All the solar and wind power that has been installed hasn’t reduced fossil-produced energy demand. These green sources have merely added watts to our insatiable demand for energy.
At this point, some of you may growl and say, “It’s not really green. It’s dirty, too!!!” The POD recommends that you put a sock in it. Whether it is green or not is irrelevant. It’s all about total consumption.
The leveling off of average personal consumption is a good thing, to be sure, but to get the real picture, the number has to be multiplied times the number of humans in the US. And that total continues to increase, unabated.
Even if we’ve managed to curtail the increase in personal energy use (Hooray, a baby step!), there are so many more of us that the total usage goes up significantly.
A suggestion from the POD
Here’s a radical idea. How about you join forces with the Prince Of Darkness and turn off the lights when not needed? And the televisions, ovens, stereos, vent fans, etc. And push the A/C up a few degrees when you are melting, Texas, and the heat down a little when it’s cold, Minnesota. Buy a sweater.
Let’s reduce our energy consumption by 1/3. It shouldn’t be that hard considering we’re wasting two-thirds now.
Do I need to remind you this is your patriotic duty!? Do you think Rosie the Riveter whined when she had to put warplanes together? Did our grandfathers and great-grandfathers not answer the call?
Shut up and do what you know is right. And don’t even think about mentioning your personal freedoms in the context of wasting energy.
If we Princes really begin saving, even a few percent, guess what happens? We’ll have excess capacity for generation, and energy prices will come down. All those dirty sources will be creating less dirt! Here in the world’s #2 for energy gluttony, we PODs can make a difference by reducing consumption.
And if we spend less on wasted energy, all that money will be available to “waste” on things less ephemeral. Think of how much richer we’ll be able to make our billionaires! And maybe some small percentage of the savings will be available to feed our hungry, shelter our homeless, and retrain our chronically unemployed.
America will be great again!
This POD gets teary-eyed just thinking about it. And it all starts with turning off that light when you leave the room.
Next time: The Milky Way has been stolen, and the POD is not about to lie down for that!
