BE AN ENERGY “WASTE WATCHER”

Why must we conserve energy? That’s a good question . . .and the answer is very simple: By conserving energy today, we are helping to make sure that we will have enough energy in the years ahead.

You can become an energy waste-watcher!

Once you know what to look for, you can make valuable energy-saving suggestions to your friends and your parents.

You see, it is very easy to waste energy. Most of us waste energy every day. We may not do it on purpose. . . but we do it, nevertheless!

Have you ever walked out of a room without switching off the light? Well, leaving a light on unnecessarily wastes energy. A 100-watt light bulb, for example, wastes about one fluid ounce of oil (or about l¹3 ounces of coal) for every hour it operates unnecessarily. That much fuel — oil or coal — was burned at the power station to generate the electricity that kept the bulb lit.

An ounce of oil may not sound like much, but just think of all the light bulbs carelessly left glowing on your block. . . or in your home town. . . or in your state. . . or in our country. In no time at all, those “little” ounces add up to thousands of gallons.

Some experts believe that we waste ¼ of the energy we use! That is a huge amount of oil, coal, and natural gas each year.

We really can’t afford to waste any oil, coal, or natural gas. These are precious natural resources that took hundreds of millions of years to create. They are truly irreplaceable! Once we use up the limited supplies that nature has provided us, we simply won’t have any more.