How much do you rely on power when traveling? Not just the kind that comes from your car battery, but a smartphone, your tablets, and other devices that you or your family may have? Most people have quite a bit of things that they want to power. Things once dead are hard to bring back especially considering how smartphones tend to be slow charging when pulling from your vehicle. It is this concept that we are focusing on when we talk about conserving power while on the road.

The Many Things We Power

Your vehicle has more than enough power to handle its own needs unless there is an underlying problem with its battery. With that being said, it often isn’t able to handle charging a device that isn’t part of its system. Therefore, it may charge slowly. This also depends on what your device needs. Many of today’s smart phone’s have enough battery to last a day. Their pull on the car will be great, so they tend to take longer than smartphones from a few years ago.

What do you have to do to keep up? We turn to the idea of portable power banks, inverters, and other options. It provides us with some satisfaction and does not do as much to wear down our vehicle.

Are They SAFELY Effective?

The concern is that portable battery banks and such are not “Green”. The truth is, you can look around and there are many “green” rechargeable batteries available. These batteries recharge so that you do not have to toss them away. You can have not only the battery banks, but all other sized batteries. Most cannot be charged in the car, which can pose a problem, but it means your vehicle can power other, more important things.

For instance, if you are not concerned about preserving your phone’s battery while running GPS or music apps, you can use a thermoelectric plug in cooler. It is better to use this type of cooler over ice or ice packs and promise to keep things just as cold, or colder.

Will Plug In Coolers Conserve Power?

When considering coolers that plugin vs Ice, you will soon find that there are many benefits. You will no longer have to deal with ice water getting into your foods or sticking your hands into ice water for a soda. It is also “greener” because you will have nothing to throw away if it busts open. They pull every little power from your vehicle and can keep things cold for a weekend outing without depleting your vehicle’s battery.

Can you think of a potential downside to it?

How much is your average power bill each month? If you are like most people, with their central heat and air units, home computers, washers and dryers, and more; it is likely quite a bit. Most people have a heat and air unit for their comfort, refrigerators are required if we want to keep foods fresh, and then we have other appliances that do other things. The one thing all of these appliances have in common is that they jack up a power bill quickly. Therefore, it is important that we start thinking about conserving electricity through efficient appliances.

Appliances with the Highest Electricity Usage

As a general rule, anything you have in your home that runs 24/7 is going to be a big energy hog. For that reason, your refrigerator and/or freezer is definitely going to consume a lot of energy. In fact, refrigerators are at the top of the list, closely followed by stand-alone freezers. People who live in the south or in areas where it rains frequently, may use a dehumidifier. These appliances also use a lot of electricity, since most of them are considered high-wattage appliances and most people use them constantly to keep the humidity down in their home. Air conditioners, heaters, and water heaters are also highly wasteful when it comes to electricity. They all run for hours each day, if not all day, and many of us do not know how to use them in an efficient way.

Increasing Efficiency

If you are tired of high power bills, your first step should be to look at the energy rating on your appliances. Even appliances that are a few years old may have affordable replacements that are more energy efficient. If buying new appliances isn’t something you can afford to do, there are other things you can do to increase efficiency in your home. For instance, your refrigerator needs to have its temperature settings turned to the most optimal setting. The freezer should be set to where it is 0-5 degrees and the fridge can be 36-38 at its coldest. You can also check to make sure it is sealed good and avoid holding the doors open while you search for something inside. If you have a central AC and still feel warm during the heat of the day, you could get a portable AC to help keep you feeling cool. Some, like this Whynter Model, are very energy efficient and it will make it easier to cool the hot spots in your home rather than turn down the thermostat to cool the entire house more.

Search for More Ideas

High power bills are a constant issue for most people. A lot of power companies will give you tips and ideas on how to make your home more efficient. They may also offer you discounts if you make simple upgrades to your home, such as solar panels. You could also consider putting your hot water heater on a timer so that it isn’t keeping water hot while you are at work or on vacation. In short, there are many things you can do to cut out on your electric bill while keeping the appliances that you need. Even if it means changing out your light bulbs for more energy efficient options; its still something positive. You simply have to look around for solutions that will work for your family.

True adventure and nature lovers spend a lot of time in the great outdoors. However, one of the best places to play and explore according to most is a body of water. Lakes, streams, rivers, and more are all uniquely different. They also change constantly because of erosion and other things that happen naturally. Therefore, it is important that we respect water, especially fresh water, and all the animal and plant life that thrive there. As a true nature lover, you wouldn’t want to have a negative impact on the natural order of things in that area. Do you know how to get on the water in an eco-friendly manner?

The Beauty of Water

Lakes and large rivers or streams are all beautiful areas of our world. They deserve to be respected. The animals who live in them only have one home. They cannot uproot their “school” to find another home to rent. Exploring what nature provides is a favorite pastime of a lot of outdoors-men, but most all of them use boats to do so. Boats with larger motors are great for speed, but they also come with issues that could make fish wish for a cleaner home. They often discharge exhaust, oil, fuel, and other toxins into the water, especially if you have an older motor that hasn’t been tuned up in a while. Batteries can also leak out if they are not marine specific batteries that have special seals and boxes to ensure that they are able to resist vibrations.

Keeping Water Clean

Water is one of our most valuable resources. Only a very small percentage of our water on Earth is fresh water and a sad truth is that without it, plants, animals, and we would not survive. This is why so many freshwater lakes and other areas recommend that you leave the motor boats at home and discover new ways to explore the water. For instance, you could go kayaking or stand up paddle boarding. If you do not want to paddle your kayak to the middle of a large lake, you can always look into a trolling motor. You only need a battery that will fit inside a box, with just enough power for kayak trolling motor and maybe a small fish finder if you hope to go fishing while out in the water.  The small battery size will also ensure that you have plenty of room for whatever you want to do on the water.

Leave Nothing Behind When You Go

In forests all across the world, you are encouraged to leave nothing but your footprints behind. Although no one can walk on water, it is a good practice in this area as well. It goes beyond trash and such when you are in the water. Keeping oils, battery acids, and other toxins are just as important as keeping plastic out of the oceans where turtles and large fish may become hurt by them. It is all about preserving the area for those who come after you and conserving a natural resource that is in limited supply.

As a world, there are a lot of things that we use that comes naturally from the land that we live on. There are natural gases that can be used as fuel to heat and cool our homes, there are ores and minerals that are formed over thousands of years that we can harvest, and more. Conservation of these natural resources is extremely important for our future generations. What you may not know is that the one thing we absolutely need to work on conserving is our water supply. It is the one thing that we absolutely cannot live without.

The Importance of Water Conservation

Even though our world is made up of a lot of water, fresh water is something that is in limited supply. In fact, only about 3% of our water is drinkable and this amount often dwindles during times of drought. Of the 3% much of that fresh water is located within frozen glaciers and other ice formations. The rest of it is located underground. If all the drinkable water in our world disappeared at one time, we would all be dead within a matter of days. To prevent this from happening, we often filter out salt and other minerals to create more fresh water, but it is a process that is costly and time consuming.

Benefits of Conserving Water

Beyond saving the world from certain death, there are a lot of other benefits to putting more effort into water conservation. One of the biggest is the ability to help you save money since most areas charge you for the water that you use in your home. This is because creating more fresh water via treatment facilities is expensive for all areas of the world, but it is also because you can mess up your septic system by using a lot of water and this could cause ground water contamination if it overflows. Other benefits are much larger. It involves saving our aquatic environments and allows us to continue to grow food and raise animals for food.

Reclaimed Water?

One thing many are doing to help conserve fresh water is to reclaim water, but is it really “reclaimed”? Can we drink it safely? The truth is, reclaimed water is wastewater that we use for irrigation. It is clear and odorless but can also be cleaner than the water we have in our wells. There are some areas of the US that are trying to use reclaimed water as a part of the “drinkable” water supply. However, until it is absolutely certain that we can use reclaimed water for drinking and our survival, perhaps you should consider using it as a way to save fresh water around your home. For instance, there are companies like Earth Stone Water that help you decrease the fresh water use around your home. It is done by setting up tanks that catch water, filter it, and turn it into water that you use for landscaping. You save and put water into the ground where it can be filtered further naturally. Is this something you would consider doing?

In today’s world, there is a lot of talk about our world and the toll that we are taking on it, by trying to survive. The truth is, each generation leaves their own unique footprint on the Earth. We all do things that impact the world, whether it is filling up landfills or filling our homes with cold air on a hot summer day using an air conditioner that has bad emissions. Along with that, each generation seems to use more of the resources that Earth provides us with freely and this is depleting the resources that we depend on. If we continue on the path that we are on, we may end up using up enough that Mother Nature cannot keep up with our demands. This is why conservation efforts need to be in place. Are you ready to help us conserve?

What Comes from Nature?

With all the talk about conservation, many people still ask what is it we are using? We should strive to conserve the things that Nature provides for us naturally. For instance; sunlight, water, oxygen are things that Earth provides. There are many other things as well though. In North America, natural gas, petroleum, silver, gold, iron, coal, zinc, and many more things all come naturally. Pretty much every continent provides something unique that we depend on. However, these things do not replenish quickly. They take years to form in some cases and our demands for them grow with each year. Could you imagine a world where there was not enough bauxite to create the aluminum that we need, enough nickel to provide us with steel, or natural gas to heat our homes?

Our Most Important Resources

The most important resources we have on earth are water, air, and coal, but there are also many others. All three of these are in limited supply. Only about two and a half percent of our Earth is fresh water. When it is gone, it will be virtually impossible to create more. Fresh air is provided by the trees and the flowers in our world. The more land we clear, the less oxygen we will have in the future. We also do things that damage the air quality with pollution. If all the air is of poor quality on our earth, we will not be able to survive here. Our coal supply is also diminishing quickly. It is estimated that in less than 200 years, coal will be something that we no longer have access to. According to some, there is only enough natural gas to last for another 60 years.

Help Us Conserve

Our world depends on us as much as we depend on it. You may think that conservation efforts are beyond your ability, but this is not true. Our Earth depends on us all to work together in caring for the environment and conserving what we can. Instead of driving your car in the middle of a city, why not walk to work, carpool, or ride a bike to cut down on pollution which damages the air quality? When you want to build a new home on a piece of land, leave the trees that you are able to and plant others outside of the area where you want to build. Fix leaky faucets, recycle things you no longer use, and more. There is plenty of information available at the Macomb Conservation District to help you learn how to help us conserve our world for future generations.