Five Percent: Conserve Energy

Uninsulated Ceiling

I’ll write more about the details in another post, but it occurred to me that many, if not most houses could get a payback. If someone like me (obsessive, crazy) failed to take this simple step for at least 5 years, there’s something wrong. Here are some of the things I think need to happen:

• The rapid payback opportunity should be promoted more visibly;
• It should be a lot easier to find the companies that do this kind of service in your area;
• If there’s a tax incentive, I don’t know about it, but there should be;
• Utilities should have an incentive to promote this kind of action, and even do no-cost financing of the audit cost;
• There should be a good, current, easily accessible registry of contractors and “finder” tool on the EnergyStar site;
• There should be some certification for contractors who can do the audits, as well as those who can do mitigation; and
• Everyone should know that it’s easy, quick, low-cost, and has no downsides!

And probably a few others. (more…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

In a sea of bad economic news, it’s good to see that there are jobs coming — the stimulus to states is beginning, and the New York Times published a list of stimulus projects, by state. It pretty cool to see how many of these are repairs and improvements to public facilities. When I pay my taxes, I do like to think that this is the kind of thing I am paying for. Even cooler still, many of the projects I saw on the list for my home state of Massachusetts (pdf) improve energy efficiency.

I am sure there will be graft, corruption and frivolous projects done as part of this. But judging from those on the list for my state, they are mostly just “things that were on the list to get done” but didn’t make it. And, on the radio this morning, I heard that even high-priced law firms are laying off lawyers and (gasp) reducing their billing rates. So perhaps there will be work for the poor lawyers, too.

President Obama highlighted the benefits of efficiency in his press conference last night, in several different cases. For example, he said

When people suggest that, “What a waste of money to make federal buildings more energy-efficient.” Why would that be a waste of money?

We’re creating jobs immediately by retrofitting these buildings or weatherizing 2 million Americans’ homes, as was called for in the package, so that right there creates economic stimulus.

And we are saving taxpayers when it comes to federal buildings potentially $2 billion. In the case of homeowners, they will see more money in their pockets. And we’re reducing our dependence on foreign oil in the Middle East. Why wouldn’t we want to make that kind of investment?

Why not indeed?

Even my hero Jon Stewart on The Daily Show showed clips of Obama talking about weatherization as Stewart pretended to nod off. Next, they played a clip of one of Obama’s rousing speeches about grand ideas and asked “Where is that guy?” Weatherization sounds so … boring, I guess. It doesn’t sound grand, or bold.

We continually seek grand “silver bullet” solutions to our problems. Instead we need smart solutions, and lots and lots of them, boring or not. (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.

(Update: 12/2010: More detailed scientific theory about why programmable thermostats will indeed save money, if you use them correctly in a new post.)

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…)