Earth Day, turn those amps OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@thecarpathian - 

Nearly 100% of an average American's modern lifestyle depends on fossil fuels, directly or indirectly, across clothing, housing, food, travel, entertainment, waste disposal et al.

Modernity guilt being expressed on a forum featuring (quite unnecessary) luxury mid-to-high-end hardware...nonetheless!  A bit of irony goes a long way to making my day, but conserving water, electricity, recycling and hypocrisy, not so much and never!

In fact, I still recall being forced to install H2O saving toilets in the early 90’s when I was (as I still am in the midwest US) pouring thousands of gallons of water on my yard.  Those early literal POS porcelain thrones often plugged and overflowed-- for lack of another gallon or so, the family couldn’t properly dispose of what needed to be disposed.  And don’t get me started on clothes washers that don’t wash (hint: cloths need to be soaked in water, to properly wash).

Saving a bit here, saving a bit there and for what, to reduce the 100%, to 99.9% -- to make myself feel good?  Well, at least I'm doing something...Yeah…NO!!

"Lighting (5–10%)"

I have mentioned, I designed Corporate Office Space for 40 years, When I came out of college, started working full time 1970, I was taught to calculate between 3-4 watts per sq. ft. to figure out how many light fixtures to plan for, in each office, room, large space. Of course you needed more AC for that. 2x4 fluorescent those days was 200 w per fixture.

Many rooms were 4 2x4s, I started using 3, stronger light at the desk area, let it be a bit less in the front by the entry.

Next, along came computers, which not only added heat, they used a good part of the panel for that floor. A period existed when you added new risers from Con Ed, new transformers, new panels, to handle the computer load, the ’extra’ AC and separate AC for computer rooms, that was a lot. Let’s not forget big damn UPS (uninterruptable power supplies) for Computer/Network/Telephone rooms. 

At the same time, HVAC engineers were getting ac from base building ducts from rooftop chillers, and providing many separate water cooled chillers, and then using re-heat coils to let the executives in offices adjust it.

NYC said ’no more water’; 'no more reheat coils'; then they had to refine their skills. I learned enough engineering to direct my engineers, because, it had to work well, but within a budget, I wanted more money below than above the ceiling.

I had lighting consultants, but after a while I did my own, including modified and custom fixtures, and generally providing light where needed, much less elsewhere, a pair of lights for artwork in generally dim corridors.

Next, I championed indirect light, both in rooms and open areas, big 400 watt metal halide, less energy, better lighting ...

I got pretty good at minimizing the lighting load so less add’l power was needed.

While planning Fortune Magazine, the Time Life Facilities director casually ended a meeting with, oh, btw, you only get 2 watts per sq. ft for lighting. My boss left shaking his head, sucking on his pipe, I liked the challenge, I ended up with 1.48 w/sf.

This is a long way of saying, when energy efficient lighting started, the fixtures, transformers for LED, kelvin colors of watt saver lamps SUCKED. I studied, decided it was better to provide good lighting, smartly planned than compromised crap.

Eventually better efficient lamps and fixtures came along.

Oh, btw, those 400 watt metal halide, in indirect boxes, had tempered glass covers. I found a bulletin from GE, they sometimes had ’non-passive’ end of life. What? Oh, explode, spewing 2700 degree molten glass. Combine that with the fact client’s facilities people were sometimes breaking and not replacing the glass, or replacing with window glass, so I stopped using them and sent out warning bulletins to all my clients.

Those bulletins were the beginning of my BOLD, underlined, italicized habit you see I can’t stop doing today. 

This thread's OP apparently made a career out of the post's subject.  There's gold in them thar electricity saving, global warming/cooling ("oops...which one is it...it needs to be changed to something ubiquitous & stable, unlike what our garbage in/garbage out model's money-making-predictions have been, to continue to make our over 50-years of the sky-is-falling prophecies")...yeah.../”climate change”...that's the 10's of Trillions of $ ticket!  

I woke up thinking about ’GAS’ Gear Acquisition Syndrome’ Cameras, Audio, Autos, Clothes ....

How much energy is involved in the entire chain, from making the beast machines that dig the raw materials, roads to those sites, feed and house the workers, transport, warehouse, lighting/heat/ac, parking lots, parking lot lighting, snow plowing, landscaping of every site involved, marketing materials, sales offices, everything needed for every location in the entire chain to get to your door. 

Yup, modernity!!  Everything we touch, wear, plan for and do is available almost entirely because of fossil fuels and I for one love it, use it and sometimes even abuse it.  And guess what, I may be guilty of not brushing the dog enough, and of my previous footprints in wet concrete; but, my carbon footprints and earth day you gotta be kidding -- there's that 99.9% savings, or gosh...it may even be a savings of 0.3% less than 99.9% -- yea, back patting all around!! 

Better yet, how about enjoying the benefits and bountifulness of “Modernity Day”?  You know: amplifiers, lifesaving drugs, computer imaging, instant communications, high speed travel, cell phones, AI data centers, maintaining a life-saving body temperature…the list is almost endless. 

Maybe instead of a hybrid SUV, I should go full EV!?!  That way, because the fossil fuel fueling my car is burned out of sight (far away), I can pretend that I CAN’T see it emitting those naughty greenhouse gasses and I don’t know that the children who are making my batteries are being poisoned and the lithium fields are killing wildlife and poisoning the water table; thus, I can impress myself and my friends with my planet/carbon footprint savings; which then might even motivate me to start a thread on the use of saving power for (of all things) power amplifiers.   

Saving the planet:  what a delightful concept, when we humans can't begin to save ourselves from each other, let alone save something the size and complexity of a celestial body.  

Perhaps before saving the entire planet, we could start slowly by quashing a tornado, halting a hurricane, or corking a volcano; or quite simply & very easily, how about just monitoring the use of our power amplifier’s power…Yyppee-ki-yay!?!

@mrmb Outstanding!

It's all virtue signaling! If anybody actually cared everyone wouldn't be.driving SUV's.

@mrmb 

+100!