Energy Currents
Energy Savings Tip – Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise
As the spring temperatures rise, your home and office will get warmer. Instead of turning on the air conditioner, turn on your ceiling fan. The question that is always asked is whether to operate your ceiling fan clockwise or counter-clockwise? There is often confusion on which way to run your fans. In the spring/summer, use the ceiling fan in the counter-clockwise direction. While standing directly under the ceiling fan you should feel a cool breeze. Even at high speed, a ceiling fan typically uses less energy than a 100-watt light bulb – and less than a 25-watt bulb at low speed. And some fans use CFLs for even greater savings. Remember, ceiling fans cool only people, not the room, so when you leave the room, turn the fan off.
Energy Price Projection – Natural Gas hits Bottom
Natural gas prices may have finally bottomed out, after hovering around 10-year lows for weeks, said energy magnate T. Boone Pickens. Prices have slowly started creeping above the $2 mark after settling below that level just a couple of weeks ago.
“The price for natural gas has smoothed out pretty good,” Pickens told reporters on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. “I think it’s bottomed.”
Pickens said he wouldn’t be surprised to see natural gas prices at $3 in a year’s time. That would be welcome news for companies such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon and EOG that have been trying to cut production. These companies have been hampered by higher oil prices since many natural gas producers simultaneously produce oil from the same wells.
Pickens also thinks oil prices will continue to rise. “I think you’re going to find oil will get pretty tight this summer,” he said. “The Saudis don’t have as much oil as they say they do.” Pickens says that anything Saudi Arabia produces above 10 million barrels a day will come from storage and not new production. And it could come just as demand heats up. Pickens forecasted prices for Brent crude — Europe’s benchmark — to hit $150 a barrel by this summer.
The members of the Chamber Energy Purchasing Cooperative with contracts ending in 2012 and 2013 are being contracted to extend the contracts to 2016 at rates equal to or lower than the current contract. Call the Chamber for additional details while market rates are still low.
Energy Currents is prepared by CQI Associates, Energy and Environmental Management Consultants to the Chamber. For additional customer support or information, contract Melissa Anderson, Managing Principal at 410-740-0667 or by email at melissa@cqiassociates.com