Have You Overlook An Important Area When Saving Energy?

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by: MichaelEdwards | Total views: 60 | Word Count: 701

With everyone talking about green products, you would think that everyone would have a good understanding on how to apply green products like CFL (Compact Florescent Lamp) bulbs. I was surprised to learn from a local restaurant chain this was not so. To illustrate this point: when having dinner at this restaurant chain I noticed that spoons were not on any of the place settings.

Well, we asked our server what was going on. She told us that "corporate" had put a new rule in place at all the restaurants instead of investing in green products. The rule was that no spoons were to be placed on any place setting. I grew up in an environment where a full place setting was always set before a hungry customer, consisting of a fork, knife and spoon. Now, "corporate" in its wisdom has said that only if a customer ordered coffee was a spoon to be given to the customer. I have a six year-old that uses a spoon for her fruit bowl; we had to ask for a spoon.

After inquiring why this had occurred, I was informed that "corporate" believed that there would be an energy savings and yet not a single CFL bulb was in use. I asked how that was possible; I was told that if an unused spoon was rewashed it was costing the company money and energy. So to prevent this energy loss it was better to not put the spoon on the table. The customer would just have to wait as their coffee or hot cereal got cold or until the overworked and over utilized server was done handling the other customers who needed spoons (more likely food).

I must, say this is a little short sighted on the company's part. Most of us go to a restaurant to eat. We assume a comfortable, warm, satisfying environment, not to have to stress out trying to get the server's attention so we can get the long lost forgotten spoon. OK, a little melodrama, but the point is why should I have to ask for something that has always been there? This cost saving if there is any would be in pennies per year while using CFL bulbs would be in dollars.

While pondering this, I happened to look up. Having written a few articles on energy savings, I noticed that they were still using incandescent bulbs. From where I sat I could count more than fifty bulbs burning energy as I waited for my order, and no green products like CFL bulbs in sight. Everywhere I looked and in every room that a customer had access, there were no green products in use. If they were trying to save money, you would think some green products like energy saving CFL bulbs would be used.

Each of the incandescent light bulbs was about 75 watts. Based on their opening and closing times they are open 138 hours a week for customers and another 10 or so for cleanup and maintenance.

So I did a little comparison; incandescent vs. green products like CFL bulbs. Using a little math: 50 incandescent bulbs * 75 watts = 3750 watts per hour. To figure the total watts per week for the store, take the watts per hour 3750 watts * 138 hours the store is open per week = 517,500 watt hours per week. The grand total for one year would be 517,500 * 52 weeks = 26,910,000 or 26 megawatts for this store alone so I wondered what the saving would be using green products like CFL bulbs.

From the Internet I was able to learn that they have 88 stores in their chain. So if we assume this is an average store we can multiply the 27 megawatts times the 88 stores and we see that this chain is using around 2368 megawatts per year just on lighting.

Now, if one of the newer green products like CFL bulbs were installed instead, with a known savings of 75% percent over incandescent light bulbs, this chain would save 1,800 megawatt hours. I would think by using some new green products like CFL bulbs it would be a wiser investment than a few pennies saved on spoons, don't you?

About the Author

Michael Edwards writes cool stuff. Get more of it at alternative energy

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