Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

A while back, I had started a project of insulating the heating pipes that run through my basement — we have an old house that was designed for a gravity-fed hot water heating system — iron pipes and big old radiators.

Unlike a modern system, using copper pipe that run through baseboard radiators, we have a system that appears to be one step beyond the old steam-heat systems: big, heavy cast-iron radiators that take up a lot of space; and big, heavy cast-iron piping that runs through the basement and upon which I regularly knock my noggin.

Insulating my pipes was, to use an indelicate expression, like pissing in the wind. Or at least it was then. Today, I finished that job. But it took 13 years — insulating my heating pipes was probably the only thing I did that I should have done last. But I am getting ahead of myself. (more…)

As I have often mentioned in these pages, we had an energy audit last Spring. The audit was a seminal moment in my understanding of our household energy usage.

Mission Accomplished! (Or Is It?)

I talk to a lot of people about their energy conservation measures. Naturally, not wanting to look uncaring, people talk about how they have changed and are going green. Perhaps a light bulb or two changed to CFL. Perhaps they a jacket on their water heater. Some weatherstripping on their door? A programmable thermostat?

These changes sound fine, and they may actually make a difference. But there are two ways that just making changes alone doesn’t really change things.

Perhaps your two CFL bulbs reduce your electrical use a little, but isn’t it important to know how much? (For example, the oft-repeated water heater jacket is of almost no value if you have a relatively newer one). So it’s possible that your changes haven’t improved anything. And the second way changes alone are bad: you may feel like you have “gone green” … mission accomplished.

So to my great chagrin, I realized recently that I had very little clue what my heating usage was, or for that matter what it should be. I had made lots of great changes. Mission accomplished? Not so fast. (more…)

My NStar bill came the other day, and it was the lowest bill I have ever had since moving into this house in 1997 — we used an average of 13.1kWh per day; last year for the same period was 14.5kWh per day. That’s a reduction of almost 10%, year over year. Yes, it’s true that we were away for 6 days, which is why this period is historically low, but last year we were away for over two weeks. The vacation is the main reason that our consumption fell from the prior month’s average of 16.8kWh/day.

What did we do? I’m honestly not sure. It was about a month ago that I installed the new TED 5000, but we still have been mostly using the PowerCost Monitor from the year before to keep an eye on our electrical use.

I guess all those little changes we keep making, even in our fifth year of working at it are still adding up. (more…)

I just spent an hour (while on my vacation) entering home energy data for my house into Microsoft Hohm Energy Usage site. I provided a great deal of home data — items like square footage of windows, BTU/hr for my furnace, R-values of insulation in my house. After finishing this part, I was told that my energy providers are not yet Hohm partners, so unless I enter my energy use data manually, I get pretty much nothing other than a breakdown of energy use in a pie chart (which, since I have done this myself, I know is inaccurate).

In the end, they provide a list of recommendations — many were ones I had already done (and said so in the survey) such as using a programmable thermostat. Come on — that’s lame.

It is true that Hohm is not the same thing (in any way) as Google Power Meter. (more…)

This weekend I saw the TV show Wa$ted and the documentary Born Into Brothels — two entirely different shows, but I think I saw the heart of a problem we have: we have become accustomed to a way of living that will be difficult to part with.

Wa$ted is a TV show — they come into your house, find how you’re wasting energy, propose and install solutions, follow your progress for a month, give the first year’s annualized savings in cash. The episode I watched resulted in a modest reduction in energy consumption by the family, and several refusals to part ways with some of their things. Born Into Brothels is about a photographer living in Calcutta who realizes the plight of the children of sex workers, gives them cameras, knocks down numerous barriers to help get the kids raised out of abject poverty, and has both success and failure.

These are very different shows, but it helped me see that regardless of outcome, even when the result is positive, people are resistant to change. (more…)

If you have 20 minutes, please use them to watch this video. If you don’t, please take 3 minutes to skim this article about it, after which I suspect you’ll find another 20 to watch.

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…)

I have spent a lot of time and thought on how to save electricity, but not as much on how to save natural gas. I got a lot of information right from the bills, but I used a cool measuring device to get to some important details.

I have a gas furnace and water heater, and also a gas stove. Sure, I can see how much gas I use from the bill. But what do I do with that information (other than pay the bill?)

I wonder how our gas and electrical usage compare? They are both in dollars, but how does that translate to energy? To get that I need to read the bills and convert to a single unit of energy. Following the excellent model of WattzOn … sort of — they measure power, in Watts — how much power you are using now, and at every moment (watts measures power, which has the time factor, or rate built in).

But here I am looking at the energy that I use over some period of time, like a day, or a month or an hour. So I have decided to measure energy. And so we can compare, I can convert to a standard measure: kilowatt-hours (think: 10 old-fashioned 100W light-bulbs, all on for one hour). When you’re talking about things that use energy like water heaters, furnaces, lights, refrigerators, and so on it’s more important to think of how much you use them in a given day (or week, or moth, or year). I’ll pick “day”.

Read Your Gas and Oil Bills

According to our utility bills from the most recent billing cycle:

• Electricity: 616 kWh in the 33 day billing cycle, or 18.6 kWh/day
• Gas: 180 therms in the 25 day billing cycle, or 7.2 therms/day, and 1 therm = 29.3 kWh, so 5274 kWh, or 211 kWh/day

Wow! I used more than 11 times more energy in gas than in electricity. (Maybe I should spend more time focusing on that, especially in the winter!). Ok, how about relative price? (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…)

Here’s a chart of our electricity use at home over the last four years, showing an almost 50% reduction in use over the course of four years, saving us $118 per month at our current rate. You can make the same kinds of changes we have — nothing we have done is exotic, and nothing has really affected the quality of our lives.

One Half As Much Saves $118 Per Month

Conservation is about as un-sexy as it gets; but it works and is easy for electricity. Measuring our gas bill is a little harder, but I have to think we have made some progress there, too. I did a calculation on our water bill, and that one is stunning, as well.

Conservation may be dull, but saving money is cool, and it’s very easy to save a pretty substantial amount. One way to think about saving money by conservation is that it is like tax-free income! Between state and federal taxes, you probably pay from 20% to 50% of your income; if you got a $118/month raise, you would see less thant $100 of it, maybe as little as $59! But if you conserve, it’s tax free income. (more…)

Live Better

Ok, I’ll admit that this is not a new observation made for the very first time. But I think it’s important to look at what we do, and perhaps given some of the things that may be new this year, to reflect a little on why we do them, and what they reveal about us.

Christmas is about consumption, and feeling good about ourselves as a result. Here in the US, and I suspect in some other parts of the world, it’s not about religion (Christian or otherwise). I know many, many people who have come to believe that Christmas is what the marketers would have us believe.

In other words, we have manipulated ourselves, over decades into a view of this holiday that aligns well with our true beliefs.

And so what I write about here is how we need to become aware (more…)

Not to brag or anything, but my family rocks! We have reduced our electrical consumption by 40% over the course of the time we started seriously thinking about our impact on the environment. What’s the secret?

As you can see from numerous blog posts linked here, and from the pretty amazing chart (click here for the readable version) I made here, there is no secret.

Changing light bulbs to CFL certainly helped. We replaced our washer and dryer with energy efficient models. We turn out the lights when they are not in use. We set up TVs and computers to turn off completely and automatically. We were careful about heat in the basement playroom (which uses electric heat). And we reduced the need for air conditioning in the summer using insulation, shades, ceiling fans and others.

But most of all, we just became aware. Becoming aware was gradual (more…)

A picture is worth a thousand words. And I’ll just add one more: by doing almost everything listed here we have reduced our energy consumption by at least 1/3 and we think by 1/2.

Click the picture to see the details. Simple, simple, simple.

Eat plants, says Mark Bittman. This is a very rational discussion on how we have gradually turned ourselves into a nation eating nothing but junk. The impact on carbon footprint is staggering.

From the TEDBlog, I highly recommend this video.