Are you ready for a challenge?
Until we scale up those alternatives the world will continue to face two energy problems: hundreds of millions of people lack access to sufficient energy; and the dominance of fossil fuels in our energy system drives climate change, and other health impacts such as air pollution.
To make sure that everyone in the world has access to clean and safe energy, we need to understand energy consumption and its impacts around the world today and how this has changed over time.
In the meantime you can take this challenge:
WEEK 1:
| Day1 | During the first day, try to write down all the activities you undertake that require energy. |
| Day2 | On the second day, again write down all activities, this time separating them into the 3 sectors (Transport, Household, Industry). Reflect on the activity of Day1! Did you really include all actions that require energy? |
| Day3 | Have a look at the sector Transport of the activity list of Day2! Are there any alternatives that are more efficient? Plan your daily activities related to Transport as efficiently as possible? |
| Day4 | Today, try to spend one day without using any energy at all for activities related to Transport! |
| Day5 | Have a look at the sector Household of the activity list of Day2! Are there any alternatives that are more efficient? Plan your daily activities related to Household as efficiently as possible? |
| Day6 | Many energy utility companies have installed smart metres in their customers' houses which allows them to follow the precise usage in real time. Find out more about your utility company and try to figure out if you can follow your usage in real time as well. |
| Day7 | On the seventh day, complete the work you have done and rest. ;) Reflect on the first 6 days and write down if there are any habit changes that were easy to make. Are there habits that you think are impossible to change? |
WEEK 2:
| Day1-6 | For Week 2 it is important that you have installed a smart metre provided by your utility company. Your challenge for week 2 is to measure how much electricity you normally use in a week and then try to save as much as you can by shutting off your stand-by appliances (like the TV and the Internet router) when you don’t use them to save on stand-by power. You can also see how much the air conditioning and the drier and dishwasher uses and cut back on how much you use these appliances. Go through all of your appliances and see if you can spot any power leaks that could be avoided. |
| Day7 | On the seventh day, complete the work you have done and rest. ;) Reflect on the first 6 days and write down if there are any habit changes that were easy to make. Are there habits that you think are impossible to change? |
WEEK 3:
| Day1-3 | With the recent energy crisis where electricity, gas and all other energy sources suddenly became very expensive, most of us tried to find alternative ways of heating our houses, or at the very least turned down the heat to a minimum. Your challenge for day 1-3 of this week is to find out if there are other, cheaper and more sustainable energy sources that you could use to heat your home. Do the calculations to see if an investment in a new heat source could be cheaper and how long it would take for the investment to pay for itself. |
| Day4-6 | The challenge of day 4-6 is to find out how much you can save on your cooling bill by turning off the Air condition. Can you think of alternative methods of cooling your house? Can you shield the windows from the sun during the day? Can you use fans and open windows in the evening? |
| Day7 | On the seventh day, complete the work you have done and rest. ;) Reflect on the first 6 days and write down if there are any habit changes that were easy to make. Are there habits that you think are impossible to change? |
