If you live in Juneau, you know about our energy crisis unless you live under a rock.  On April 16, at about 4:00 AM there was a series of avalanches that took out over 1.5 miles of power line and several towers, cutting Juneau off from the hydroelectric plant that powers the community.

As a result, the entire capital city of Alaska and our 30,000 residents have been running on diesel fuel.  It was estimated that it would take 100,000 gallons per day to keep the lights and heat on.  Due to drastic conservation by members of the community, we have been burning half the projected amount.

Of course, much of that conservation was due to the fact that we are experiencing an increase of almost 500 percent in our per kilowatt rate.  We will be paying nearly 55 cents/KW for the next few months while repairs are made.

For most of us, this is going to hurt and for many it will be a budget breaker - especially young families with children and the elderly.  When your average bill is $100 it will be $500.  Our average bill is $200 so that would have made our bills $1000.  That was simply not acceptable.

My husband and I are fortunate to live in an energy efficient home that doesn't have electric heat, but we've taken steps to conserve diesel too because that is over $4.00 per gallon.  The heat is turned down and so is the water heater.

You wouldn't know it from the history, but really, we were lazy about electricity.  We kept our hot tub at 105 degrees all the time.  It wasn't uncommon to leave lights on when nobody was in the house, or sometimes even in the room.

Necessity forces conservation.  I've got a landscape plan I'd rather spend money on!

Here's what we've done so far, reducing our consumption by over 50%

•1.        Obviously the hot tub is turned off.  I miss it and so does my husband but there's no way it's worth $1000 per month!

•2.       We are very careful to only use lights we need, and in some ways have even changed our habits to work with the increasing daylight hours.  We have more compact fluorescent bulbs than we used to and try to use those lights that are equipped with them.

•3.       I unplugged everything not in use.  The electric ovens are only used once a week or so and are now turned off at the breaker box.  The microwave has an LED display so I didn't need two.

•4.       Instead of using the automatic feature of my coffeepot, I plug it in each morning to make coffee, and unplug it as soon as the coffee is done.  I have the kind with the insulated carafe so it stays warm for several hours.

•5.       The instant hot water dispenser under the sink has been unplugged.

•6.       We use our propane cook top or the propane BBQ much more often.  Baking is a serious luxury.

•7.       I try to get to the dishwasher before the cycle is complete in order to air dry the dishes.  Many times I just hand wash the dishes, but the jury seems to be out on which is more efficient.

•8.       We adjusted the aerator on our septic system to come on and off periodically instead of running constantly.

•9.       I let my hair dry naturally and rarely roll or curl it now.  I'm lucky to have some natural curl in my hair, but when it's only 40 degrees outside it is no fun to leave with a wet head!

•10.   I use our high efficiency washer to wash clothes, mostly in cold or warm water, and hang them on a rack or hangars to dry.  At first I hated this.  Crunchy towels, stiff clothes and misshapen socks and undergarments did not appeal to our family at all.  An older friend taught me a little trick that has really helped!  After the clothes are dry, put them in the dryer for just a few minutes.  The action of the dryer knocks down the scratchy and rough spots.  You don't even need a heated setting to do this. 

There is still so much more we could do, but we to give up TIVO and we still aren't fully trained to turn off our computers completely.  We are not giving up our 55 gallon aquarium which fortunately isn't heated.  We are delaying the setup of a 300 gallon aquarium though!

It is my hope that someone reading this can reduce their own bills as well.  We will keep you posted on our family's efforts and continue to be thankful this happened in April instead of January.