Air Date: Week of June 17, 2011

Looking for ways to decrease your contributions to global warming? Listener David Ogden of California suggests when you use your oven, turn it off early.

Transcript

GELLERMAN: It’s Living on Earth, I'm Bruce Gellerman. From time to time we offer up a Cool Fix for a Hot Planet ----no sweat ways to cut energy use and save some money in the bargain. And we always challenge you to come up with cool fix ideas, and here’s one from Walnut Creek, California.

OGDEN: My name is David Ogden. I listen to Living on Earth on KQED in San Francisco. My energy saving idea is to turn the oven off ahead of time when you’re heating up a frozen dinner or other frozen item. By turning it off five or ten minute ahead of the actual done time, you’re going to shut the oven off and save some gas or electricity. I found that after five minutes there’s a temperature drop of 29 degrees, after 8 minutes the temperature drops 56 degrees, and after ten minutes, temperature drops 68 degrees.

So if you’re doing something like baking a cake or bread or something that needs a very specific temperature, you probably don’t want to do this, but for other items like frozen entrees, and TV dinners, seems to me that that’s a good way to save some energy.

GELLERMAN: Thanks, David. And if you can’t stand the heat, send your Cool Fix tip our way. Our email address is: coolfix – that’s one word – coolfix@loe.org – or post it on our Facebook page, that’s PRI’s Living on Earth. And if we use your great idea on the air, we'll send you a shiny electric blue tire gauge! So you can keep your tires properly inflated, save some dough, and cool the planet.