Texas Tech engineering students teamed up with Lubbock utility companies and area businesses to demonstrate techniques for energy efficiency Saturday at the Science Spectrum.
The 2007 Energy Efficiency Expo was hosted by companies and organizations including Atmos Energy, Lubbock Power and Light, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and Tech's Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Center to raise awareness of the need for conservation, said Beccy Hambright, research associate at the T-STEM Center.
Scott Smith, a junior industrial engineering major from Waco, said he manned Tech's booth at the event because he is an Outreach Mentor in the College of Engineering, working to get local school children involved in science, engineering and math.
"There's been people that have come up to our booth, and they've been surprised at the exact extreme of the heat produced by different light bulbs and the little things you can do to save energy in your house," he said.
The expo, organized by the Avalanche-Journal and Atmos, is the first of what is planned to be an annual event starting in April, said Dan Alderson, director of public relations for Atmos's West Texas division.
"We just had an idea and said, 'what if we were able to bring all the utilities together to talk about being green and conserving energy,'" he said. "It's very educational, but the core thing is West Texans - and Americans in general - need to conserve energy, because we don't need to be wasteful, because utility bills are starting to be more and more of a family's budget."
Alderson said as part of the energy conservation effort, Atmos will coordinate an essay contest with the Lubbock Independent School District for all grade levels with the theme of 'how to conserve energy and save money at home'.
Three winners will be selected, and their families will receive a $500 prize to help implement the ideas proposed in their essays, he said.
"Then we'll track them from January to April and see if they've saved any energy over the same time last year," Alderson said. "If we save energy, there's less pollutants in the air, less greenhouse effect and it's better for the environment, but more importantly, it's better for your pocket book."
Alderson said heating and cooling are the biggest consumers of natural gas and electricity for a household. He recommends homeowners install programmable thermostats for their air conditioning units and suggests renters request landlords install them in apartment complexes.
"If it's 32 degrees outside and you think, 'well my house is going to get cold,' well it's not going to hurt your home to drop down into the 60-degree range while you're gone," he said. "Just be conscious of what you're doing, and realize that if you say, 'well, I'm comfortable with 75 degrees,' you're going to pay for that fuel."
Smith said another way people can save electricity is by switching from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescents, which use less electricity and produce less than half the heat of incandescent bulbs.
"The less heat you produce in your house, the less you have to run your A/C," he said.
Smith demonstrated the contrast between fluorescent and incandescent bulbs using two thermometers at the expo.
A thermometer near an incandescent bulb registered at almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit while a fluorescent bulb registered in the mid 80s.
Other techniques Alderson said he recommends to increase energy efficiency in homes and apartments are installing insulation in attics and walls, running caulking around windows, installing weather stripping around doors and using natural sunlight for heating in the winter and for light year round.
He said he also recommends putting clear plastic sheeting around windows in the winter to provide further insulation.
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