Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

A lot of issues have arisen around “green” things having various different names: energy independence, gas prices, cap and trade, green jobs, economic meltdown, clean coal, conservation, polar bears, glacial melting, water shortages, food shortages and prices, and on, and on. Each affects various groups of citizens of the world in different ways. But they are not really different issues, they are facets of the same issue: global warming.

A lot of talk during the US election process centered around energy independence. Ok, good enough for me, because addressing energy independence in many ways results in solutions we need, such as higher fuel efficiency in cars, significant investment in alternative energy and conservation. Sort of.

As our economy bit the big one, talk moved towards jobs, and rightly towards green jobs. Ok, good enough for me, because addressing economic issues through investments in important infrastructure like a smart electrical grid, wind, solar and geothermal, that’s a good thing. Sort of.

But now we’re seeing reality, which is that if people only really understand and care about things like gas prices and jobs, the political pressure for change will be directed at gas prices (ok, well, that one’s “solved”) and jobs.

But jobs is an issue, but it’s not the the issue. The issue is global warming. We were reminded of this today in a rather stark report suggesting that CO₂ doesn’t just “go away”. In fact, the thinking is that CO₂ released is kind of there for a loooooong time, effectively forever.

My first thought on hearing this report is that global warming skeptics will conclude that we were already unsure of whether human efforts to mitigate global warming would do any good; now we know it’s pointless. This is not the right conclusion: Susan Solomon, the scientist reporting this finding asserts

I guess if it’s irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it, because committing to something that you can’t back out of seems to me like a step that you’d want to take even more carefully than something you thought you could reverse.

Clearly Dr. Solomon has never been to a casino. (more…)

Over the last years, as I have been writing this blog I have made a lot of little changes that have added up — the biggest change by far has been simply becoming aware of how my actions use resources. A new site called WattzOn aims to make becoming aware of your impact a simpler proposition.

Figuring out how much energy you use seems easy, or at least it did to me until I tried it. Sure you can add up the things that appear to be the “biggies” — the gas you buy for your car, the electricity bill, the heating and cooling bill and so on.

But that calculus represents a misleading picture of your impact. For one, we eat. It takes a lot of energy to make (and deliver, store, etc.) food. Oh, and we buy things, too. Everything takes energy just to get to your front door before you even turn it on (or trash it when you’re done).

And one I regularly forget: the services our governments provide, from making roads to heating the state house all add up to a huge chunk, too. And what about businesses — how do we add them in?

WattzOn asks you a few key questions, then does a good job of trying to count all of these things up, and then let you see how you’re doing compared to others. My gas company has a similar tool, but it only thinks about gas and electricity. WattzOn is taking on a larger pie, and that’s important. It’s also a lot harder. (more…)

When I installed our real-time PowerCost Monitor, we were able to measure our total electrical usage and see how what we did used electricity. It has had an incredible effect on our behavior. Likewise, the real-time mileage display in our Toyota Prius had a similar effect.

So, now I want real-time energy measurements for several other aspects of our house and life. And I want the data to be aggregated. In an iPhone application (and a web page, of course). And also a display that sits on our kitchen counter-top, like the power cost monitor with a readout. It seems so simple … well, sort of.

Energy Data, Wherefore art Thou?

I think the actual data is obtainable. We use gas to heat our house and to make hot water, as well as for cooking — it’s all carefully metered, but only read and recorded every month. We record all of our expenses for food, and gasoline, taxes, and everything else in Quicken, and most stuff we buy is on a credit card.

Natural Gas

The gas usage is a big one, since no doubt heating and hot water are likely to be the biggest energy consumers in the house. But I cannot currently tell how much gas is used for hot water versus for heat. (more…)

A recent conversation reminded me that many people believe it’s a bad idea to set your programmable thermostat too low, asserting that it will use more energy to bring your house back up to temperature than it would to leave the temperature closer to normal.

This is wrong. False. Myth. Not true. No way, no how.

Every moment your house is warmer than the outside air, (heat) energy is leaking out. The greater the difference, the more energy leaks out.

Every moment your home heater is on, energy is being used. The longer it’s on, the more energy is used.

Period. (more…)

I have several household energy reduction projects in mind and am hoping to get some advice about which one I should take on first. I am considering:

• Tankless (on-demand) Hot Water Heater
• Foam Spray Insulation combined with Energy Audit
• Geothermal Heat Pump
• Solar (PV or Water Heat Assisted)

I have a lot of questions about which ones make sense, how to tell which one is best, how much they’ll cost, and how to measure all of it. (more…)

I finally got a WordPress Plugin working that allows readers to get notified by email to comments made on posts. I hope it’s useful.

After so many years of yelling “fire!”, it may be hard for us environmentalists to accept that we have the leader we need; we must now help put out the fire.

I get a lot of emails from the various environmental, energy, green, progressive and other organizations I follow. It’s no surprise that after the election, there was much jubilation. But lately, there’s a bit of a sulky, mean-spirited feeling to some of the emails I have been getting. One I got today from Environmental Action started with “So far, President-elect Obama’s appointments to top environmental positions have ranged from mediocre to disappointing.” I don’t mean to pick on this fine organization — there are plenty of other cases of people who are feeling let down. But come on, let’s take a careful look.

Disappointing? Really? Mediocre? Really?

Sure, there’s one guy that many environmentalists are not happy about: Ken Salazar, designate for Secretary of the Interior. I wasn’t thrilled with Tom Vilsack, for Agriculture, either.

Obama’s Environmental Picks are Excellent

But come on, all you greenies out there — let’s get real. First, Salazar and Vilsack both fall into a category of being damned by association, for the most part. I mean, these guys are “pretty good”, at worst. That leaves them several heads higher than the very best appointments of the Bush administration. And perhaps a little clear leadership will help these guys use their influence for good.

But the other top positions are stunningly great, if you ask me. (more…)