This past summer, my energy provider - Pacific Gas & Electric - ran a promotional program, the"20/20 Summer Savings Program". The program began June 1, and ended September 30th. During those four months, if you were able to reduce your electrical energy consumption by 20% over last year’s totals, PG&E would rebate you 20% of your total electric charges for that period on your October bill. A very smart program. Summer is the highest usage time of the year here in California, due to home and industry air cooling during the hottest periods. By encouraging homeowners to reduce their usage, it helps level the daily  peaks somewhat, and reduces demand on power generators (as should be known, power plant capacity has to be built to satisfy peak demand, even if that peak demand interval is only for a small portion of the year, and a small portion of each day during the peaks as well). I went after the rebate wholeheartedly. I had already purchased a "Kill-a-Watt" meter a year ago - a wonderful device that you plug into an outlet, then plug into that whatever you want to measure, and it gives you true kilowatt-hour usage readings. I got mine on ebay - just do a search on Kill-A-Watt and you’ll see plenty of listings. I didn’t reach the 20% goal unfortunately, but did manage to reduce overall consumption by 14%, not half bad when you think about it.

How did i reduce usage?

• 1. I used to leave my computer on 24×7. The justification was that since I’m a systems administrator, I need fast access to get online if there’s ever a problem with my servers. Which is true. However, problems with my servers are so rare that the five minutes to wait for my PC to fire up in the middle of the night is of little consequence. I’ve not had an unplanned outage of my servers in a couple of years now. What few emergencies there are are not immediately customer-affecting. My PC alone burns about 155 watts continuously, or about 3.5kWh if left on continuously.
• 2. I was running previously - and now that the rebate program is over have resumed - running the Folding@Home client on my computer. I won’t belabor the good that comes from running F@H, suffice to say that I’d encourage others to run it. If you’d like to contribute your work unit results to my team, you can visit My team page for details. However, running the client at maximum usage added a good 20W to 30W continuously to the computer’s power consumption, so for about half the duration of the program, I suspended running it.
• 3. My monitor burns about 95W - 110W on average when cranked up to highest contrast. I ran a ‘gamma correction’ program to get the optimal settings, and brought that down to the range 85W to 100W. Not a huge savings, but it helps (it’s a big old 21" CRT). I also set the power savings to kick in a lot sooner - after three minutes idle - so that the monitor will blank more quickly if I step away for a bit. The blanked consumption is a mere 4 watts.
• 4. I discovered, much to my dismay, that my ‘home theater’ system burns - when not being used at all - nearly 150 watts! 33 watts are the (gigantic) big screen TV idle current. 19 watts are from the (gigantic) power amp when left on but idle. The TiVO burns 29W continuously, and the Comcast HDTV DVR burns 44W. The remainder is I assume various ‘bits’ of idle current in the UPS, the main audio receiver, etc.. I was able to reduce the usage pretty significantly - put the bigscreen on a hard power switch, so at night when we’re done with the TV, off it goes, completely. We’re leaving the gigantic power amp off almost all the time now - it drives only the subwoofers, and for most TV content it’s just not needed. If we rent a DVD we turn it on. And through most of the summer, almost all the HDTV broadcasts were repeats - so I just left the comcast DVR unplugged. I now have it on a timer, so it comes on in the early evening and goes off in the wee hours of the morning. It needs to be on continuously for at least a few hours every day in order to get guide updates, and of course when watching hi-def content. But otherwise, there’s nothing overnight or during the day for it to record, so off it stays. The TiVO pretty much needs to be on all the time, since there’s a number of programs that are regularly recorded overnight.
• 5. I maintain some backup servers in my garage - I have a dedicated high speed internet connection, so I’m able to provide ‘offsite’ backup services for my main business here. I used to have three servers. I was able to consolidate functionality from two of them into one, so that eliminated one whole server. and I also found that instead of the net 6 processors that were running those two servers (4 in one, 2 in the other), I’m able to get by just fine with only *one* cpu in the remaining machine! that saves a LOT of power. The remaining other server, I pulled some of the memory from it that wasn’t needed, and detached a second harddrive that was unused as well. All the equipment there was previously burning 235W continuously, that’s now down to about 130W I believe. That’s really the bulk of where we saved. And the beauty of it is that it’s not a hardship at all. even though we didn’t meet the rebate requirements, we saved about $90 over the four months compared to usage a year ago. Not too shabby.

I think the Kill-a-Watt is a great investment. Really seeing how much power a device is burning can be, uh, illuminating, to employ a bad pun. I recommend getting one if you’re interested in saving both energy and money.

I’m curious whether any of my (infinitesimal?) reading audience are Toyota Prius or other hybrid vehicle owners. If not, would you consider buying a prius if you were in the market for a car?

Purely a non-scientific ‘poll’. If I had the money for a Prius, all other things being equal, I would probably buy one. Why? gas savings for one, obviously. cool high-tech car, for another. What might temper my decision? well, poor acceleration performance would be a bugaboo, but if it were just for bouncing around town in, or just the occasional longer jaunt, that’d be no issue at all. long term maintenance is a great big question mark, but as above - all other things being equal.

A coworker bought a Prius a couple of years ago, so I had a chance to go for a short drive in one once. It is pretty neat. Totally silent electric drive when pulling out of the parking lot. very quiet motor when it started up. Lotsa cool digital displays showing how the power is being routed etc.

For a gadget freak like me, it’d be a lot of fun!

This one may come across as a longshot - and for that matter, it may sound like a commercial for a product. I assure, it is not [ "I’m not a real shill, I only play one on my blog"].

First, a little background. I used to own a Subaru WRX. For those not familiar, the WRX is a ’stealth’ performance car. It looks like just another compact Japanese sedan, but it sports a turbocharged motor that is an absolute kick in the pants to drive - extremely fast acceleration, amazing all-wheel-drive handling, etc.

For someone interested in conserving energy, it would surely seem like a poor choice. On balance though, compared with such delights as the Hummer and ginormous Cadillac Escalade - vehicles that sport miles per gallon ratings in the single digits - the WRX is practically an economy car. In the three or so years I had it, I averaged about 21 miles per gallon, and that was driving it very hard. The downside though was that it required Premium fuel, preferably 92 - 93 octane or higher.

Shortly after I got the car, California reduced the mandated octane rating for Premium to 91 octane. While the car could handle that fine, I really wanted to maintain the performance. After much searching on the internet, I ran across a product called "GTA Fuel Enhancer". Unlike the majority of fuel enhancers, it’s not a cleaner, or an alcohol, or any sort of direct octane booster. GTA is a hydrocarbon viscosity modifier. Put in the most basic terms, it’s this slimy, snotty ‘fluid’, you add a couple of ounces to a tank of gas, and it increases the uniformity of the fuel droplets that are injected into either the carburetor or directly into the cylinder. That makes for a more uniform burn, and reduces detonation - ‘pinging’ - so in other words, it increases the effective octane of the fuel.

I’ve used the GTA for a couple of years now, and can attest that it does seem to restore the octane. Its easy to experience the Placebo Effect with such things, so I won’t say in unqualified terms that it does do what it says it does - but it certainly felt like it. As well, my wife recently started using it in her 1986 Toyota Pickup, which has 216,000 miles on the original engine. It has a tendency to ping when at highway speeds and under some load. The use of the GTA eliminates that.

The cost, when bought in bulk (gallon), amounts to about $1.00 per tank. when filling a tank can cost upwards of $45, that’s a small cost.

Does it increase fuel economy? No idea. I enjoy the feeling of acceleration, so I’m a bit of a leadfoot. I never know what my mileage for a tank will be. However, the GTA folks claim it increases gas mileage, and they have quite a bit of non-sensational info on their site to back it.

Oh, I no longer have my beloved WRX. The cost of the premium gasoline, plus the fact that I work from home - meaning it sat gathering dust in the garage more than six days out of seven - led me to sell it recently. I bought a Subaru Forester instead. Haven’t gone through the first tank of gas yet, so i don’t know what kind of mileage it gets. I presume it’ll be slightly better than the WRX, but the fact it takes regular grade gasoline will save a good chunk of money.

I would encourage others to try GTA. I will note for the record I have absolutely no association with them. I bought their ‘goo’, and that’s the extent of it. But other, less lead-footed, may be able to report back whether it increases their gas mileage.