The Lance J. Technoweb

I like the think about the details of things.  So my question is: when is the best time to do laundry?  My conclusion is that it depends on the weather, the time of day, and the day of the week.  Here I will tell you the variables I consider when doing laundry (or running the dishwasher, etc etc). Energy Use and the Time of Day If you're going to use electricity from the grid, it is always best to consume when the grid is powered by the most efficient power plants. Generally speaking, grid electricity is most efficiently produced when the grid is at low load.  That's the time when the most efficient base load power plants are supplying most of the grid's power, and the power from less efficient variable-load power plants are minimized.  So the first answer of when to do laundry is "when fossil fuel power plants aren't being over-worked".  This means moderate temperature nights and weekends, or on moderate sunny days when solar power generation is greatly d...

I have an over-the-range GE microwave oven, and I use its surface light quite a lot. It's great for illuminating the stove top, or just brightening the kitchen a bit. Sadly, the bulbs it uses are a weird size and they burn out often. Here I discuss how I installed common and inexpensive LED bulbs in my microwave oven. Microwave Oven Surface Light with LEDs Most over-the-stove microwave ovens and exhaust hoods still use old-school incandescent light bulbs. They burn out rather frequently, and it's a pain to replace them because it entails removing the glass panel with a screwdriver. To compound the pain, the weird bulbs are stupidly expensive. And since each bulb uses 40 watts of energy, cost to run them (80 watts) is ridiculous. I initially replaced my microwave's 40 watt bulbs with 25 watt bulbs, but that's still 50 watts, and they're still burning out several times a year. I decided that I'd replace the lousy old bulbs with quality LED bulbs, but sadly nothing...

Water can be expensive, right? Well, kind of.  Water is actually free. You have a lake or a stream or ocean near by and you can basically take water from it at zero cost. What costs money is moving and cleaning water. A local water supply is often pumped, and is often treated to make sure its clean enough to use.  Then the waste water is usually pumped through a waste water treatment plant.  And all this water cleaning uses the magic of chemistry and filtering, which requires a lot of energy. Every time you run a shower or flush a toilet takes energy, because ultimately that water needs to be moved and cleaned.  Chemicals need to be mined and processed to perform the treatment. In short, water-related costs are mostly energy costs.  Using water uses energy, and saving water saves energy.

My brother made the mistake of trying to save some big money by buying a "genuine replacement" MacBook power adapter bought on Amazon .  The replacement adapter was under $30, was highly rated, and looked exactly like the Apple adapter.  But it burnt out his Mac after a year of use.   Evil Replacement Mac AC Power Charger Huge money save?  Nope! After about 18 months, my brother's MacBook Air stopped working completely.  He asked me, the family tech guy, to take a look and perhaps repair the damage. I looked at it and immediately noticed that the MacBook's power pins were covered in carbon soot.  That's an indicator that the counterfeit charger was dumb enough to supply fully power over the small pins as the adapter was being connected to the MacBook. This is a behavior results in sparks,which chews away at the pins. Burnt Out Mac Power Pins, removed from damaged MacBook   Then I looked at the connector on the power adapter's cord.  Ouch, the p...