What can be done to manage energy use in a sustainable way?

Question

Can anyone tell me what can be done to manage energy use in a sustainable way? and as an active citizen what can i do?

Answer 1

You can try to use some alternative energy products like solar flashlight,solar camping lights.

Answer 2

If your trying to save money on your bills you can insulate around windows and doors, keep your thermostat at around 75. turn off lights when finished. Remember, as an active citizen you pay for your energy consumption. If you waste you pay high energy prices which is fine if you can afford it. Remember it's a capitalist market. You pay for what you use. You buy it you own it. Conservation will take care of itself on that base alone.

Answer 3

I believe one of the most important actions you can take is reducing your usage. The average American lifestyle waste more energy than we actually use. We heat and light empty buildings, we run a/c's at night when the air is 10 degrees cooler outside. We have chargers drawing electicity with nothing attached to charge. We plug in laptops when the batteries are fully charged. We have additional refrigerators to chill our beverages then pour them over ice. We arrive 15 minutes before school lets out to make sure we are at the head of the line at our childrens school then sit with our engines running so we can run the a/c or heat. We buy food that was picked weeks before it was ripe so it can be shipped thousands of miles only to be gased in a warehouse to look fresh and think we are eating healthy.

The fact is we could dramatically reduce the amount of energy this nation uses if we were just less wasteful. If we considered what we need, and could see the long term financial benifit to investing in a few items that can save energy which will save money. We are using more electricity per person than we used to and the number increases each year, we are getting more wasteful.

People don't want to invest in upgrades to their homes, because so many don't plan on staying more than a few years, we are constantly in an upgrade mode. Others think it is the landlords responsibility. Simple things like a programable thermostat, CFL bulbs, unplugging unused charges can save electricity and money.

We could reduce the number of new energy plants we need and give us time to make better decisions about what type to build.

Answer 4

We have enough Uranium for millions of years if we use breeder reactors (a proven technology) so we aren't going to be running out any time soon.  They are also environmentally friendly with the only waste being some spent fuel that will become less dangerous as time goes on (less dangerous than the ore it came from in about 100 years, we can easily keep it safe for that long).

In a few decades we'll probably have fusion power which should last us a very very long time and the space infrastructure to collect solar power in a place that isn't dark half the time.

Answer 5

Uranium may be the answer, but it's the answer 25 years from now -- if the whole world said "go" tomorrow and started building nuclear plants, the first ones wouldn't be finished until 12 years from now, and there wouldn't be enough to make a dent until 25 - 30 years (and that's with today's technology--forget about fusion fantasies)

We need to make some harder choices than we like -- like building new efficient coal plants but shutting down older ones (that means building new evil coal plants but getting rid of more than we build).  We need to acknowledge how much electricity we waste. We need to build lots of renewables, and encourage governments to renew incentives, but recongnize that this is only a small solution to the problem.