28/05/2009 by admin.

One of the main causes of producing CO2 is driving. Whilst driving is in many cases a necessity, and in other cases a luxury many people will not want to give up, it is possible to reduce your carbon emissions which will help in the long run.

See the Driving/Transport page on the Green Saving Expert website for lots of tips on this.

What is the most economical speed to drive at? This depends on many factors, including model of car, type and size of engine etc. Generally, the best speed will be the lowest speed you can do in top gear without labouring the engine. This may be in the 45-50 mph range. However, please bear in mind safety and consideration for other drivers. When driving on a dual carriageway or motorway, it will probably be best to drive at the same speed (or slightly faster) than the lorries - i.e. around 55 mph or so. Driving slower than this will cause frustration to other drivers and will get lorry drivers overtaking you, causing tailbacks.

55 mph seems like a good compromise between economy, time, safety and consideration for other drivers.

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22/05/2009 by admin.

I’ve done a very quick survey on a handful TVs of different ages and sizes, just to give a rough idea on how much power they use. Obviously different makes and models would use different amounts of electricity.

• 14″ Panasonic CRT, 20 years old, on=39W, standby=6W
• 21″ Panasonic CRT, 10 years old, on=55W, standby = 2W
• 28″ Philips CRT widescreen, 5 years old, on=80W, standby=2W
• 37″ Panasonic Plasma widescreen, 1 year old, on=220W, standby=18W, off=2W (!)

 The amount of power used by the larger three varies depending on the brightness of the scene, but these seemed like typical values. LCD TVs should use less energy than equivalent sized CRT TVs, but as the trend is for larger and larger screens, the power usage goes up accordingly. There is still some debate over power consuption of LCD vs Plasma TVs - LCDs use a constand amount of power, but the amount used by a Plasma screen depends on the brightness of the scene - on dark scenes they will probably use less power, but on bright scenes they will use more, sometimes upto 100W more.

Note the standby figures, especially the Plasma, which still uses 2W even when it is switched off at the TV! Please make sure that you switch your TVs off when not in use.

More energy saving hints on the Green Saving Expert website.

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20/05/2009 by admin.

Welcome to my first blog entry. I will regularly update this with Green Saving Expert news and ideas. If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a look at the Green Saving Expert website 

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