VO: “I believe we are motivated by both our fears and our hopes. My greatest fear is that people will see the problem as too big and too severe to do something about it. But I am an optimist. I believe we can do something, and I have seen proof. For the rest of this journey, I will share this proof with you and a message of hope about things we can do in our own lives to bring an end to the problems we face today.
“The solution is really simple.
“For example, wind power is green power. Renewable. Limitless. Pollution-free and no coal mining required. Solar power is green power, converting sunlight into electricity. Green power works best when the inside of the home is energy efficient. Most of our homes and buildings today are not efficient, wasting enormous amounts of energy and making the problems worse. If we eliminate wasted energy, and use green power, the problems will vanish. It’s simple, it works, and it begins at home.
“I’ll use my home in Nashville Tennessee as a starting point. I live in a 1200 square foot basement apartment with my wife Heather. We came up with a plan to eliminate our use of coal and nuclear power altogether, using that two-step approach. We started with our lights. In the typical home, lighting is one of the biggest energy users. Most homes still use these relics: incandescent bulbs. We could be using compact fluorescent bulbs, which use a fraction of the energy, and last years longer. Replacing just one will save you up to $75, plus hundreds of pounds of coal over the lifetime of that bulb. We went through our home and counted all the incandescents we have wasting money and wasting coal every time we turn them on. Then we went shopping. We supported our local economy, and purchased enough compact fluorescent bulbs to replace every single incandescent in our home. With each bulb, we began saving coal, cleaning up the air, and saving money. It was one of the most feel-good investments we ever made. Our electricity bills went down immediately, and the bulbs paid for themselves in no time.
“Most homes are gold mines of energy saving opportunities. A government program called energy star makes it easy for YOU to find the most energy efficient appliances and electronics on the market. To learn more, I traveled to Atlanta and met with Danny Orlando.”
DANNY ORLANDO: (Energy Star Specialist, US EPA, Atlanta, GA): “Energy star doors!”
VO: “An energy star specialist with the US Environmental Protection Agency.”
ORLANDO at Lowes: “Let’s go shopping for energy efficient products! Products labeled as energy star include energy include air conditioners, lighting, dishwashers, television sets and home electronics. There are now more than 50 products that carry the energy star logo. Refrigerators operate 24 hours, 365 days a year. The good news is they’re 40% more efficient today than just a few years ago. So if you replace your old refrigerator you’re gonna see a significant savings on your energy bill. Energy star programmable thermostats, if used properly, can save you 150 dollars a year. Now that’s a week’s worth of groceries. And it’s gonna make your house more comfortable.
“This is your typical top loading washer uses about 500 kilowatt hours per year. Now let’s compare that to an energy star qualified front loading washing machine and you can see if we look at this energy star label it uses 167 kilowatt hours per year. Now that’s less than half of the standard washer, we just looked at. Now there’s some savings for you. How’s this for water cooler chit-chat, energy star. If every American household changed one bulb to an energy star compact fluorescent, we’d save enough energy to light 2.5 million homes and remove the amount of greenhouse gasses from 800 thousand cars. Wow we can really make a difference. All we gotta do is change one light bulb. Energy star doors and windows. They keep the heat out in the summer time and they keep it in in the winter time. Energy star can also be found in home sealing, weather stripping, and insulation products. That’s why I like home improvement stores. They are just a gold mine of energy saving ideas and products.”
VO: “Danny walks his talk.”
DANNY: “I want to show you a few things about my house.”
VO: “He showed me the simple steps he took in his own home.”
DANNY: “It’s important. I went around and caulked around all the outside surfaces that might be leaking into the house here. And what a great opportunity when your able to replace your heating and cooling system with something that is rated as energy star. See all that black right there? That’s an air leak. I can feel it right here. The typical home wastes about 20% of the warm and cool air that is delivered through those ducts. A great way to seal that is to mastic your ducts. For 11 dollars and 47 cents you can save about 200 dollars a year. So we seal it up. Literally when your doing this, you’re picking up dollar bills right off the ground. That you don’t have to pay later. Let me show you some R38 cellulose which is ground up newspaper in the attic for insulation. Every kilowatt hour you save by doing these things is a pound of coal that you don’t have to burn. Let me show you my savings. And you can see how it has dramatically dropped. So far I’ve cut the air leaks in this house in half. That’s significant. I’ve also saved 600 dollars per year on my power bills. ”
VO: “Danny did such a great job, that his entire home qualified for the energy star rating.”
DANNY: “Any home can be an energy star home, but there’s three things you need to do.
- One, seal it up. Seal those ducts, and seal the air leaks in your house.
- Two, put insulation above your head and down by your feet.
- Three, if you’re going to replace appliances or major heating and cooling equipment look for the energy star and that’s home performance with energy star.”
VO: “With our new knowledge, Heather and I made a few more changes in our apartment. Being on a tight budget, we went to a used appliance store and bought an energy efficient refrigerator for 200 bucks. After installing the lights and refrigerator, we noticed a dramatic drop in our energy bills -- cutting electricity use in half compared to the previous year. We now save between $25 and $50 a month. My experience at home inspired me to search for the energy savings potential in America. I was amazed at what I found.”