Did You Know?

If you reduce the temperature setting of your water heater from 140 degrees to 120 degrees F, you could save over 18 percent of the energy used at the higher setting. Even reducing the setting 10 degrees will save more than 6 percent in water-heating energy.
Air-conditioning energy use can be reduced 40 percent or more by shading windows and walls. Position trees and shrubs to keep the sunshine off the building and nearby ground.
A dripping faucet can waste up to 20 gallons of water a day.
A leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day.
If every gas-heated home were properly caulked and weather stripped, we'd save enough natural gas each year to heat about 4 million homes.
The human body gives off heat, about 390 Btu's an hour for a man, 330 for a woman. Dressing wisely can help you maintain natural heat in the winter. Wear closely woven fabrics. They add at least a half degree in warmth.
If every household in the United States lowered its average heating temperature 6 degrees over a 24-hour period, we would save the equivalent of more than 570,000 barrels of oil per day.
If every household in the United States raised air-conditioning temperatures 6 degrees, we'd save the equivalent of 190,000 barrels of oil every day.
Approximately 80 percent of the energy consumed by a dishwasher is used to heat water; a typical dishwasher uses 14 gallons of hot water per load.
The amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth's surface in approximately 3 days equals roughly the total energy content of all known supplies of fossil fuels.
Fluorescent lights convert electricity to visible light up to 5 times more efficiently than incandescent lights and last up to 20 times longer.
The incandescent light is the most common lighting source in U.S. homes. It also wastes the most energy. Ninety percent of the energy consumed by an incandescent light is given off as heat rather than visible light.
Between 1978 and 1991, there was a 4-5 percent loss of ozone in the stratosphere over the United States, which represents a significant loss of ozone. A thinned-out ozone layer could lead to more skin cancers and cataracts; scientists are also investigating possible harm to agriculture. Destruction of stratospheric ozone is attributed to CFCs and related chemicals. CFCs are widely used as refrigerants in such appliances as refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, and heat pumps.
A transit bus with as few as seven passengers uses less fuel per passenger mile than a typical car with only a driver in it.
A transit bus with full rush hour load of 44 passengers uses much less fuel than 11 cars with 4 passengers each.
A fully loaded rail car is 15 times more energy efficient than the average automobile.
Increasing mass transit ridership by 10 percent in the five largest metropolitan areas would save 135 million gallons of gasoline a year, while also reducing emissions of air pollutants.
Boosting the occupancy of automobiles in rush hour from one to two persons would save 40 million gallons of gasoline a day (or over 15 percent of U.S. gasoline consumption), while reducing the number of vehicles on the road.
One gallon of used motor oil when recycled yields the same amount of refined lubricating oil--2.5 quarts-- as 42 gallons of crude oil. Recycle your used motor oil!!!
The United States uses 400 billion gallons of water per day.
If every American home installed low-flow faucet aerators, 250 million gallons of water would be saved every day.
New energy-efficient motors are about 5 points higher in efficiency and operate about 10 degrees C cooler than repaired standard design motors. In a study of over 100 motors, they also operated just under their full load rated current, compared to repaired standard motors which exceeded full load rated amps by about four percent.
Trains are among the most energy-efficient mode of transport. In the United States, trucks use more than eight times as much energy to transport freight between cities as trains.
Trains are among the most energy-efficient mode of transportation. Based on a measure of the amount of energy required to move one passenger one kilometer in the United States, an intercity train uses 948 kilojoules. A commercial airplane, on the other hand, uses three times this amount of energy, and an automobile with a single occupant uses six times this amount of energy.
Electronic ballast manufacturers suggest that new energy-efficient electronic ballast and T-8 lamp systems offer energy savings of up to 41 percent over conventional electromagnetic ballast and lamp systems, with no loss of light or performance.
Replacing an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent will save the energy equivalent of 46 gallons of oil as well as one-half ton of carbon dioxide emissions over the lifetime of the bulb.
A new model refrigerator uses about a third the energy to operate as a similarly sized refrigerator from the early 1970s. If you replace a 1973 18-cubic foot refrigerator with an energy-efficient 1996 model of the same size, each year you would save over 1,000 kWh of electricity and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, by over a ton and emissions of sulfur dioxide, the leading cause of acid rain, by over 20 pounds.
Horizontal-axis clothes washers use a third less water than conventional vertical-axis clothes washers. This not only saves you water, but also the energy to heat some of that water when you use hot water.
For every kilowatt-hour of electricity you save, you also avoid pumping over two pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This helps the environment because carbon dioxide is the number one contributor to global warming.
For every mile-per-hour over 55 mph, the average car or truck loses almost two percent in gas mileage.
If the energy used to power office equipment were cut in half using available technologies, the resultant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would be equivalent to removing 6,750,000 automobiles from U.S. streets.
The average U.S. home uses the energy equivalent of 1,253 gallons of oil every year.
Americans receive enough junk mail in one day that could heat 250,000 homes.
If 100,000 people stopped their junk mail, we could save about 150,000 trees every year. If a million people stopped their junk mail, we could save about 1.5 million trees.
It is estimated that 50 percent to 80 percent of the tires rolling on U.S. roads are underinflated. Driving with tires that are underinflated increases "rolling resistance," wasting up to 5% percent of a car's fuel. We could save up to 2 billion gallons of gasoline annually simply by properly inflating our tires.
If all the cars in the United States were equipped with the most efficient tires possible, the fuel savings would equal 400,000 barrels of oil per day.
If 10,000 families with four members each installed inexpensive low-flow aerators on their kitchen and bathroom sink faucets, they'd reduce water consumption by more than 33 million gallons a year.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimates that if each of us increased the energy efficiency of our major appliances by 10 to 30 percent, we'd reduce the demand for electricity by the equivalent of 25 large power plants.
In 1994, for the first time in its history, the United States imported more than 50 percent of its petroleum, a level of dependence that aggravates the trade deficit and leaves the American economy vulnerable to oil price shocks.
Residents of Los Angeles drive 142 million miles every day--roughly the same distance between Earth and Mars.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, leaky automobile air conditioners are the single largest source of CFC emissions to the atmosphere in the United States.
Cars emit 20 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of gas consumed.
According to one expert, if America refined the billion gallons of motor oil they use every year, we would save 1.3 million barrels of oil every day, which represents half the daily output of the Alaska Pipeline.
According to the American Paper Institute, the average American consumes about 120 pounds of newsprint each year -- the equivalent of one tree.
If everyone in the United States recycled one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25 million trees every year.
More than 500,000 trees are used to supply Americans with their Sunday newspapers every week.
Manufacturing glass from recycled cullet uses up to 32 percent less energy than producing glass from raw materials.
The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
Producing glass from recycled glass cullet rather than from raw materials reduces related air pollution by 20 percent and water pollution by 50 percent.
Disposable (throwaway) bottles consume three times as much energy as reusable, returnable bottles.
Each ton of glass produced from raw materials generates about 385 pounds of mining waste; using 50 percent recycled glass reduces this waste by almost 80 percent.
Recycling and reusing the material in tin cans reduces related energy use by 74 percent; air pollution by 85 percent; solid waste by 95 percent; and water pollution by 76 percent.
According to the Aluminum Association, Americans recycled 62.7 billion aluminum cans in 1995.
Producing aluminum from recycled aluminum consumes 90 percent less energy than producing it from raw materials and generates 95 percent less air pollution.
Waterbeds can be the largest consumer of electricity in the home, exceeding even the refrigerator and water heater. If you heat your water bed, practice simple energy conservation measures to reduce its energy consumption.
Globally, each year we pump 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere--which comes to four tons for every man, woman, and child. Of this amount, the United States is responsible for one quarter, or five billion tons per year.
It is estimated that as a result of the appliance efficiency standards that went into effect at the beginning of 1990, Americans saved more than 30 billion kWh of electricity in 1995.
Between 1973 and 1986 the U.S. economy grew by 36 percent with no increase in energy use. If Americans had not become more energy efficient, annual energy bills would have been $150 billion higher.
Boosting the fuel efficiency of cars in the United States by a mere 1.5 miles-per-gallon would save more oil than is estimated to lie under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Adding low-emissivity (low-E) coatings to all windows in the United States would save the equivalent of 500,000 barrels of oil per day--one-third the amount of oil we import from the Persian Gulf.
Approximately 90 percent of the energy consumed by a clothes washer is for heating water.
Every year in the United States we throw away 1.741 billion incandescent bulbs - enough to fill two large stadiums

Credit: United States Navy -Department of the Navy's Energy Program