Ouch!

"If there were ever any doubt before, the Federal Reserve has now made it official - high energy prices, it says, are creating a dilemma for US businesses. Despite a strong desire to pass along rising costs to consumers, businesses are hamstrung by competitive pressures and are being forced to contain prices, the Fed said in a new report."

The article: High Oil Prices Hit Businesses (Daily News Digest - April 27) is pertinent to Malta just as it is to the rest of Europe for that matter. The information was collected from a survey of businesses by the agency's 12 regional Federal Reserve banks in early April before oil peaked at about $75 a barrel.

Due to the prevailing international political impasse, no arrest to the escalation in oil prices seems to be in the pipeline, so now it's really up to each one of us to adapt to this new horrifying reality. Oil prices will continue to rise and unless we want to continue suffering a heart attack every time we receive our damned utility bills we have no alternative but to change our behaviour. The government has undertaken to introduce its dire measures in order to cope with this unpleasant truth. So what are we going to do about it?

There are a host of energy saving measures we can and must adopt. Not only will our utility bills plummet but, in our own little way, we will be shrinking a national debit the country can ill-afford to pay.

Internet sites are brimming with energy saving hints. Apart from showing the national benefits garnered, most tables also show the individual's household and the country's annual savings. Suggestions are wide-ranging, some needing forward planning, others are as easy as pie to follow and can be adopted overnight, at no cost.

The idea of paying for something we are not using is not very encouraging. When we are not using appliances we must learn to switch them off properly in a bid to save electricity. This will not only save us money but it will also be helping the environment.

Many of us are perhaps unaware that appliances on "standby" actually consume electricity needlessly. These "standby loads" occur in most appliances that use electricity, such as VCRs, television sets, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. These appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched "off". I was amazed to hear that a study undertaken in Italy revealed that the country can save some €55 million if the Italians decide to get off their couch and switch off their TV from the set rather than press the standby button on their remote control.

Apparently, mobile phone chargers consume some 75 per cent unnecessary energy when mobiles are not even being charged!

A paper on standby electricity suggests that "switching the appliance off at the correct place or unplugging the appliance can help avoid paying for standby electricity. Alternatively, using a multi-socket power bar can make it easier to turn off several appliances at once". By switching off appliances at the wall we can actually save money and also the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Many children and students spend much of their time in their bedrooms studying or playing. Many computer accessories like scanners, speakers, printers and external drives do not have on/off buttons and so are usually left on all the time as plugs may be difficult to reach behind furniture. This also contributes to most standby power consumption in bedrooms, along with the way that many products are manufactured to have clocks on all the time or require reprogramming every time they are switched off.

Other energy saving measures vary from not putting on hall lights in the morning, to turning lights off when areas are unoccupied, to substituting light bulbs with energy efficient ones, to turning thermostats down by one degree and to switching water geysers on and off according to our needs.

Actually using half-load or economy programmes for washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwashers, and boiling the right amount of water in a kettle, are all crucial issues when cost cutting action needs to be taken.

Microwaves use far less energy than cooker rings and heating soup or boiling potatoes and vegetables in the microwave could save some two hours electricity per week. This also prevents considerable amounts of emission per year.

Incidentally, did you know that, annually, "off-season" fruit imports travel on average some 1,400 kilometres? Does anyone ever consider the global "environmental" cost we are all paying for our whims? But that is another story.