Happy Birthday Earth Day! With Love from IDT Energy Geeks

Earth Day turned 43 today! Happy Birthday Earth Day!

How many countries do you think celebrate Earth Day?

Earth Day via

Did you guess 192 countries? If so, you are correct! That is 98% of the world.

According to www.earthday.org "the idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara."

Over 20 million American's took part in the first Earth Day. "The first Earth Day lead to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts."  The focus was about air and water pollution.

In 1990, there was a big push to go global and it reached 200 million people in 141 countries.  This gave a huge boost to recycling efforts.

Ten years later, in 2000, there was another push for Earth Day.  This year the focus on the need for more clean energy.

What can you do to make the world a more clean and green place?

• Sign-Up for IDT Energy Green
• Support Efforts for New Technology in Energy Generation
• Maybe create a little power from potatoes? ;)
• Be Green in the Garden
• Follow the DOE Energy Saving Tips
• Just use LESS energy!
• Follow IDT Energy geeks on Facebook and Pinterest for more energy saving tips and trip

Throwback Thursday: Electricity Insulators

Have you ever seen these little glass beauties? Perhaps sitting atop a pole? Or perhaps at a garage sale grouped with a number of other random things? Or did you see our post on Facebook?

In 1844 the first telegraph line was installed between Baltimore and Washington. Glass was used to contain the charge made of  copper, carbon, or zinc electrodes. When attaching lines directly to the wooden poles the moisture in the wood and air gave poor results.  Hence the glass insulator pictured above. Similar insulators were used to transmit both telegraph and electricity, however the bigger the insulator, the more voltage it could handle.

Of course, there were many iterations throughout the years, but a type of glass insulator like this was used all the way until the 1970s.  (At some points of history they even used ceramic, a wood/glass combination, and  insulators made from animal parts.)

Energy history is neat-o.  But since these little delights are no longer helping to support our electricity infrastructure, what can we do with them? Well some of them are quite valuable - check out this one, it's worth close to $500!! Or look at the IDT Energy Pinterest to see some awesome ideas that other energy nuts (or just regular crafty people) have come up with.

As a supplier of electricity, IDT Energy doesn't have anything to do with the lines and meters to your house (your utility still takes care of that).  But as energy nerds, we sure to find the history fascinating!