Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

100 (Billion) Bottles of Beer On the Wall

In particular, they mentioned agricultural waste — animal manure, but also industrial waste, harder problems because the sources are dispersed and tend to leech into the groundwater system, rather than be poured directly from the end of a pipe, as in the case of sewerage treatment plants.

One frightening aspect of the show focused on how new chemicals that mess with our endocrine systems are in the water, but not being taken out of public drinking water supplies … partly because scientists cannot yet quantify theirs effects. Thus, there are no regulations or standards for these chemicals, yet ample evidence to suggest they are harmful not only for the numerous fish turning up dead in the water, but for people. And chemicals we know are harmful are still around, like PCBs. One person working at the Washington, DC water supply said she would not drink the water out of the tap.

It occurred to me that information like this could cause people to say “see, it’s a good thing I am drinking bottled water”. (more…)

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method of evaluating the entire cost of a given product, from cradle to grave. It’s a very, very important aspect of understanding our consumer society and it’s impact on the earth. It’s also a very highly technical process and one that is susceptible to error; it’s quite easy to miss some subtleties and get the whole thing wrong. The New York Times printed an article about life cycle assessment today, and I think the authors may have done more harm than good.

To be fair, the article appears to be accurate. Its authors discuss the trade-off between a reusable stainless steel water bottle and a single-use plastic bottle. They explain, in a large graphic, how the process of making stainless steel impacts the environment and incurs costs in energy, transportation, toxins, and so on. One could read the article and conclude that a reusable cup is a bad choice, especially after reading statements like

One stainless steel bottle is obviously much worse than one plastic bottle.

This is a true statement, and is only qualified in a sort of vague way, namely that while there are costs, they are mitigated over time as the mug is re-used. They present this data as:

…if your stainless steel bottle takes the place of 50 plastic bottles, the climate is better off, and if it gets used 500 times, it beats plastic in all the environment-impact categories studied in a life cycle assessment.

Read this statement carefully. (more…)

GreenTech Media has a good post on how email spam wastes more than just your time — it wastes electricity! Oh, and not just a little, according to the report: enough to power 2.4 Million homes — that’s about 2% of the households in the US. Yikes.

Sounds like a job for the EPA, to me. (more…)

There has been a lot written about how much power is consumed by the computers that drive the Internet. A lot has been written about “green” data centers. But I think there’s a far more significant trend when, combined with more efficient computers and data centers, will make a 10x or greater reduction in power demand possible: cloud computing.

Data centers, brown or green are huge buildings — they are truly incredible places, with thousands of computers owned by multiple companies. I have negotiated the contracts for “co-location” in a number of data centers: you pay for floor space, bandwidth, and power and get a facility that has great connectivity, power that never goes out, and a carefully cooled environment for the computers. This blog, and most other websites are located at such data centers. Little sites like this one share a “slice” of a server with a number of others. Large sites like the ones we have at the Internet companies I have worked at have our own computers and other equipment “co-located” in data-centers.

I have been paying attention to power since 1998 when we moved the first servers for the Direct Hit search engine to a co-lo. Our first boxes were about 8″ tall, and bolted to special racks, and I think we got 7 to a rack, along with a few other needed parts. These days computers are many times more powerful, yet are 1/4 as tall — “pizza boxes” — thin computers that use a lot of juice, and put out that much more heat.

One of my companies had a space with ~100 servers at a facility in Waltham, MA but had to move — the data center “ran out” of power (more…)

From today’s New York Times:

“In my view, nothing has really changed” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama. “We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”

From this assertion, I can conclude nothing other than it appears Rex Tillerson and I must be living on different planets. The facts, however, sadly suggest we are indeed living on the same planet.

Read the article. I’ll be tearing out my hair.

Yesterday I wrote about our frying pans. I am thinking about the things we have today that have been with us for a long time.

I have behind me a pile of dead electronics. A printer, computer, monitor, iPods, headphones, wires, keyboards, mice, phones. None of these is more than five or so years old. In my basement, there’s another pile of old devices (stereo receivers, another printer, etc.). The list would be bigger if we didn’t do our best to pass along the stuff that is still serviceable.

We have been replacing pottery with new sets from Pottery Barn as needed — we’re pretty careful, but it’s all chipped on the edges, and many pieces broke. We got some wine glasses from Crate and Barrel and others from there, too. The wine glasses are etched (from the acid in the wine). our set of glasses is the remains of several attempts to restock. Yet the porcelain pottery we got when we were married have not a single chip, and we use it frequently. (more…)

Theresa and I have been married for a while now, coming on 15 years. During that time, we have had a lot of pots and pans. I’ll talk about our frying pans.

We started out with a cast iron skillet that I had owned since the year after I graduated from college. My Mom taught me about how to season a cast iron pan so food wouldn’t stick.

Then as we got more money (still “dink”s — dual income, no kids) we went upscale, buying Calphalon. These are anodized aluminum — solid and thick, with steel handles solidly bound on. These pans were the ones used by chefs in real kitchens (more…)