Any idea to save energy?

I live in the dark with just the tv on unless I really need to see something. I can see the computer and tv well enough. I have heard we should actually turn off computer screens and other things we use. I have a laptop so I turn it off for the night. I am very strict about lights being left on and leaving a room. And the waste of food I really try to use it up.

How good are your LED torches? I have built several different designs of battery-less wind-up LED torches. They out-perform anything on the market today, are incredibly robust, are much brighter, have better optics to focus the beam and can "hold" the beam on for long after you stop winding them. CFL lights are going out of favour very quickly. They are nowhere near as good as LED strip lighting, especially as the price has come right down in recent times. LED lighting doesn't need "warm-up" time and has no flicker. CFL's are also very toxic for the environment, have a very short service life and are harmful to one's health. From an engineering design point of view, many of the "solutions" (solar & wind power) are being used irresponsibly & incorrectly applied. To properly run all things on these energy sources, we have to change our ideas about centralized energy distribution and start owning our own energy sources as we have need for them instead of relying on others to provide for us & control us. We also need to change our understanding of how best to interface these devices and use them in ways that preserve them and their systems instead of murdering them like we do now & discard them to landfill due to our ignorance.

Ok, someone once said, people adopt 2 strategies, they either maximise income or minimise outgoings, I tend to be the later, which is perhaps why, along with environmental concerns I am interested in saving energy Firstly, I am no engineer, though I love to mess around with such, a bodge-engineer, or shed-mechanic as we call it here. So, I may get things wrong here. Here in UK, a big use of energy is heating in your homes and some thoughts here. 1. Straw bail buildings, houses can be built quickly and cheaply from straw bails, stacked together and rendered in lime render, for flexibility, this is a by product and offers superb insulation 2. Heat engines to generate electricity, how much energy could be generated in this way? I have no idea but as long as there is a heat differential the generator would turn so kicking out a charge almost continually. 3. Think locally and globally, what is the point of UK government paying people to invest in solar panels, would this money not be better spent putting solar panels in the desert? 4. Compressed air, currently we tend to store energy in batteries, would compressed air be a better way? Perhaps the mechanical inefficiencies would out-weigh the benefits. 5. Make your own fuel, either use straight vegetable oil or convert it to bio-diesel. For the former filter to 1 micron, if you live in a cold climate, install separate tanks on your vehicle and run the hot pipes from the engine round the filter bowl. Start on diesel and when the engine is warm swap to veg oil. For bio-diesel, filter, add methanol (careful!) and sodium-hydroxide, stir and heat to 60 (very carefully) dry, filter, etc. Ok, the ideas are getting more wacky now 6. This is an odd form of solar power Bore a hole in a hill, like a well shaft or use an old well shaft. Install a reservoir at the base of shaft, surrounded by a semi-permeable membrane, Fill shaft with micro tubules Fix solar still evaporator at top of hill with condenser to pipe running down hill Install generator at bottom of hill Connect generator pool to reservoir under hill Fill micro tubules with salt all the best urban

I only uses lights when I needed. I only turn on the tv if my favorite shows are on air and turn it off If I don't like to watch. I turn off all the appliances when going out of town trips. I unplug all appliances that are not used.