Many students don’t realize it, but the leftover pizza and food from Mom crammed in the refrigerator from last semester might be increasing their utility bills. According the pamphlet, “101 Easy Ways to Save Energy” produced by Alliant Energy, overloading your refrigerator and freezer can use more energy because the cold air cannot circulate freely.

Using less energy and more efficient products is becoming increasingly important in efforts to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign energy sources. Along with better efficiency, researchers are trying to develop alternative sources of energy. Many people are hoping ethanol will be the solution, but that is only part of it.

“The ethanol business is hot now, and it’s only a step in the new direction for renewable energy,” said Steven Fales, associate director of the Biorenewables Program and professor of agronomy. “It’s not going to be the ultimate solution; we can’t make enough ethanol to fulfill our energy needs. While we develop substitutes we need to find better ways to make things more efficient, which includes technology we don’t even know about.”

The key is to combine alternative resources and efficiency.

“There is always a balance to be struck,” said Floyd Barwig, director of the Iowa Energy Center. “There are people who are great advocates of renewables, but maybe don’t see efficiency as important, and there are some who see efficiency as important and maybe not renewable resources.”

Although the price of gasoline is down compared to six months ago, Fales said we still need to make decisions about conserving energy.

“You need to ask the questions like, ‘Do I really need to buy that big car? Do I need to take that extra trip?'” Fales said. “We need to teach our children to conserve energy.”

Another step is to be aware of the energy you use, Barwig said. Many of the steps to reduce energy use are relatively easy and cheap.

For example, after charging a cell phone, be sure to unplug the charger, because otherwise it is still using energy. Another example is properly inflating car tires.

“If everyone properly inflated the tires on their cars we could save as much gasoline as you could get out of the oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge,” Barwig said.

Jeniece Bergman, junior in dairy science, is concerned with using less energy but “doesn’t stress over it everyday.”

“I try to always keep my appliances unplugged that I’m not using,” she said. “Every little thing someone can do like shutting off a light or unplugging appliances can help.”

According to “101 Easy Ways to Save Energy,” students can also lessen their utility bills by doing a few simple things: When on vacation, lower the thermostat to 55 degrees – this will prevent the pipes from freezing but cut energy costs; set the thermostat 10 degrees lower for eight hours a night, this will lower heating bills by 10 percent; during warm weather use a ceiling fan or box fan to keep air circulating; take showers instead of baths – a five-minute shower uses 7.5 gallons of water while a bath uses 20 gallons; use smaller kitchen appliances rather than a large electric oven – they use 75 percent less energy.

Using more efficient appliances can also lessen energy use. Energy efficient appliances are going down in price while the life cycle – how long they last – continues to improve which makes them cheaper overall.

“If you go from a 60 watt incandescent light bulb to a 13 watt [compact] florescent light bulb, you’re getting the same light output from them,” Barwig said. “But the incandescent light bulb will last 800 hours and the [compact] florescent 5,000 hours. So you end up using six of one type [incandescent] and a lot more to power it.”

Consumers can tell if an appliance is energy efficient by looking for the “Energy Star” logo. Through the Energy Star Web site, consumers can search for efficient products and see breakdowns of how much money they would save yearly and for the life cycle of efficient products compared to conventional products.

For example, the total annual savings for 100 televisions is $385, and the life cycle savings is $2,859. The Web site also said switching half of household televisions to efficient televisions would be equivalent to shutting down a power plant. Switching all of the televisions would prevent 9 billion pounds of air pollution.

If consumers want to know other ways to become more energy efficient, they can ask their electricity provider to do an energy audit, Barwig said. The auditor identifies where the consumer uses energy, looks at things such as windows, insulation and furnaces and decides where improvements can be made. Both Alliant Energy and City of Ames Electric Services offer free online self energy audits. Alliant Energy also offers a free professional energy audit.