Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

As the price of oil rises we’re seeing many economic impacts. The airlines, of course are getting hit hard — a story from today’s USA Today reports:

Airlines are being creamed by the latest hike in fuel costs. Airline watcher Terry Trippler of Cheapseats.com says it now costs $103,400 to fill a Boeing 747-400 for a flight to Asia, up from $48,000 two years ago. That works out to $253, one way, for each of the 408 seats (more…)

My office is doing a recycling program. Here’s how it works:

1. We bought some blue baskets for paper
2. We bought some blue bins to put cans and bottles in
3. One of us takes one or two bins home on recycling day

Our program has been running successfully for several months and cost about $20 in supplies to get started.

The office next to ours doesn’t have a recycling program yet. They are still working out how to get someone to run the program for them. One vendor will come take paper away, but you have to buy copy paper from them. They are not big enough to command a full-scale recycling program. In fact, they are waiting to buy the blue baskets until they have the first settled. Naturally, it’s not a priority so it might take a while. Or, they could just start simply. And fast.

Here are two statements I believe to be true:

1. As energy prices rise, the urgency to find solutions will drive rapid technology advances
2. As energy prices rise, it will become more cost effective to extract oil and gas from increasingly remote sources

Both are simple conclusions I learned in the first few weeks of Economics 101 at college. Not much of economics is actually right in practice, so (more…)

Theresa and I were just talking about the fact that we have made a bunch of tiny little changes but we simply haven’t noticed any negative impact. I have my share of bad habits (oh, yeah, baby), but you know, the thing about habits is that you simply don’t notice them. Your wife notices them. But you don’t.

I remember thinking it odd that my Mom and Dad would never lock the doors of their car when they came to visit us (more…)

April 2005: 993 Kwh, April 2006: 623 Kwh

A 37% reduction and almost all of it from (more…)

It’s hard to change your behavior if your are not aware of the impact of your actions. This is true on a large scale and on a small scale.
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Sierra Club’s magazine, Sierra published a startling article called “Miles to Go Before You Eat” which measures the cost in fuel for transporting food.

I think the science behind their methodology is a little flawed, but the point is right on. (more…)

It’s not quite summer here in the Boston Area, but soon it will be hot, so this is a good time to get prepared for summer heat. Air conditioning is pretty much bad news from an energy standpoint. But I’m not going to try to say you shouldn’t use one. If I did, I would be a hypocrite, for one. But there are definitely some important steps you can take to reduce your use of A/C. Rather than starting with the obvious ones, here are some steps we have taken in our house that are not just alternatives, but which we much prefer. (more…)

I am a fizzy-water drinker. I sometimes have my fizzy water with ice, with a lime, and frequently find it goes well with rum.

But then I noticed how many empty plastic bottles we were using each week — ten, or twelve or more. So we got a seltzer bottle, and now make our own. The price for a liter of water from the store is between $0.79 and $0.99. With a seltzer bottle, the only consumable is the charger, which cost $3.50 or so for a box of 10. (more…)

What a day. At 7AM we heard “beeep, beeep, beeep” from the pickup truck delivering bark mulch. Theresa leaped out of bed realizing that our mulch had arrived. I did not. Leaping out of bed is something I avoid doing except in extreme cases of fire. Thanks to my dear wife, our mulch was dumped successfully. (more…)

In the 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush made a very important step in dealing with a critical problem by stating, “America is addicted to oil”. Mr. Bush is well acquianted with the national crisis of addiction, being addicted to alcohol himself, and which, it seems, he has successfully recovered — all power to him. Yet his personal resolve in addressing his addiction has far exceeded his resolve and actions in addressing the country’s real addition to oil. (more…)

Finally, spring has started to come and turn the gray, gray, gray of New England back to green. And with that comes the sounds and smells of spring.

By which I mean the whining and smoke from horribly inefficient leaf blowers and lawn mowers. And of course we also dump 50lb bags of fertilizer and pesticides on our lawns and gardens. Don’t forget to set those automatic sprinklers! When the work is done, it’s time to fire up the grill.

There are some real things you can do to reduce the energy used (and especially the harm to the environment) while still having a nice looking yard. (more…)