Five Percent: Conserve a Little Energy

It was 97°F in Boston this week, and we didn’t turn on the air conditioner. Or fans.

That’s because we’re not home. We have vacated the heat of the city. Where we are, it’s a little chilly at night. We have the ultimate luxury. It’s not a central air system. It’s not a super-insulated house. It’s a very small, spartan cottage, on the water of Penobscot Bay in down-east Maine, which I share with my sisters.

My mom, who is in her 80′s lives here in Deer Isle, Maine, year-round, and visited tonight. She was born in Baltimore, and as we discussed the heat wave along the East Cost (consistent with the predictions of climate change), we asked how people managed to tolerate the heat in Maryland in the 1930′s. She said that her rich friends all got out of town and headed for the ocean. She said she grew to hate places like Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Maine where her friends went — she was stuck in Baltimore. She spent her summer afternoons reading quietly, under a shade tree. Perhaps it’s not ironic that she moved here with my dad in the mid-1970′s.

In the 1930′s, only the wealthy were able to travel to cooler climates. My grandfather on my Dad’s side was an English professor at universities in Ohio and Indiana, and it was my grandmother’s family who had found a small island in Maine to go to when the weather became unbearable in the mid-west. The stories of their epic travels, by carriage, train, and eventually by a ferry from Rockport (before they built a bridge) were astonishing. But then again, they came when school was out, for the whole summer.

Even as a child in the 1960′s, the trip from Connecticut by car — down to 10 hours or so once the Interstate system was finished, seemed epic. But we stayed for a month.

My grandfather and mother stayed for the whole summer. My parents came for August. Until recently, my family came for a week, or perhaps two.

I wonder if my children will have the chance to come at all?

The only noise our air conditioning makes is the waves of the frigid Maine ocean water breaking on the beach.

Before we left our Boston home, things were beginning to swelter. We have girded our house in many (if not all) of the ways possible from the elements of winter and summer. Yet my office, designed as a sun room, is not surprisingly, quite hot on a bright day, despite air sealing, insulation on all sides, double insulated glass, awnings, fans, and the like. It’s fine, but it’s not “chilly”.

Having been here a week, and with several more to come (thanks … I guess … to a solid DSL line and WiFi so I can work) I can live for a while in the comfort of the oceanfront. The mountains are good, too.

But of course the majority of folks in our every larger world haven’t such a great and incredible luxury. We had a visit to Europe in July last year, and were pleased to see that few had turned to air-conditioning, and instead lived in houses and apartments sensibly designed for the conditions — stone, shaded, small, and designed for cross breezes. And yes, fans. Rich and poor alike have eschewed air conditioners … and Paris, at least, is not a cool city.

But still, most people don’t live in Paris. Most of us in the US live in places that are downright inhospitable during one part or other of the year.

Why? Indeed, we’re flocking to places like Phoenix. Does this make sense?

Why have we created huge population centers in places that are intolerable for much of the year? Why have they grown and flourished?

Because of heating and air conditioning. And mostly the latter.

Heating is easy: build a fire, whether by wood, coal, gas or oil, we can keep warm just by burning stuff.

The physics of cooling is far more sophisticated. Actually, cooling is just a form of heating, taking the heat out of one part and moving to another (with a good deal of energy required to perform the heat transfer miracle). Other than ice, stored from rivers frozen in winter, there wasn’t cold stuff above ground until air conditioning started proliferating in the 1950′s. And below ground was a little cooler, but pretty moist.

But the cool basement, or an ice house — these are things of the past.

Now, in the cities, towns, houses, and pretty much everywhere, even here in Maine, people are able to easily buy, install and turn on air conditioners, or central air systems to keep their whole house dry and comfortable even when it’s 100°F outside. Just plug ‘em in. Our cars, offices, restaurants, movie houses, and even back-yard patios are air-conditioned.

We sit on our patio in the cool evenings in Boston, where temperatures sometimes fall into the 70′s and listen to the sounds of the central air compressors running, even though there’s cool air to be had just on the other side of that window, if only it would open.

As a boy in Connecticut in the 1960′s, I remember the day when my Dad brought home a window air conditioner. On the hottest days, I would be allowed to sleep in my parents’ room, where it was installed. It was heaven — almost as good as Deer Isle (except noisy as hell). On days other than the hottest days, it didn’t run — it was far too expensive.

This shift to full-time conditioned space is a stunning development, happening wholesale, in the last 50 years or less. Even many of the least well-off folks in the US probably have some air conditioner. Just as they have heat, computer, TV and a car — things not in existence 100 year ago are now a simple necessity.

It occurs to me that air conditioning (and heating, which happened earlier, since it was easier) has allowed us to live in places not fit for the kind of busy lives we need to live to be productive American consumers.

And what has enabled this? Mostly the ready, accessibility of energy, with a few good dashes of enabling technology, and our increasing intolerance or ability to handle discomfort.

It may be true that we can generate sufficient renewable energy to maintain this rather bizarre and energy intensive lifestyle — one devoid of vacations to the sea, or mountains — one requiring work for all but a week or two of the year. We certainly have plenty of solar and wind, in the long run to power our heating and cooling needs, and we have the technology to make our dwellings and vehicles more efficient and climate controlled. I think it’s good that this is true.

But as I listen to the high tide hit the beach outside, and realize that I am a little chilly, I wonder — isn’t a trip to another place, even if costly in terms of time, travel, alternate spaces, and so on — isn’t it something we need to think about building into our complex modern lives?

Is it easy to say for me? Yes, of course. My sisters and I inherited a beachfront cottage in Maine — a behest not coming to the vast majority of the country or world.

But it makes me think: is there something we have forgotten in our lives? Is home something we cannot leave but for a week or two? Even if we had unlimited energy and super-efficient houses, there’s something else that getting away does for your view of the world.

Has the cheap energy of oil, coal, and gas, and the technology that has built around it changed our way of life to a point where whatever comes next is something that is different, but maybe not better? Could a look at our past give us an idea of what might be better?

Yesterday, a massive failure of a water pipe serving my home, and two million of my neighbors, threw Boston into disarray. Some sort of car bomb in Times Square (that didn’t go off) has disrupted many and alarmed many more. I have been writing about the BP Oil Spill this week. All are connected — they are more than “catastrophes”: they all help remind us how connected and dependent upon technology we are … and I hope perhaps makes people think for a moment (or longer) about what that means.

Connecting With Nature

I have been a hiker and camped in the wilderness since I was a boy — when you’re climbing a mountain you know how precious water is, but also learn how little of our technology we actually need to survive. This said, I prefer my modern tent, clothing, water purifier, backpack and clothing to what I had forty years ago. But stepping into real, pristine wilderness almost instantly connects me to the systems of the source. I think my strong environmental bent is mainly linked to this life experience.

Millions of us living in the Boston area are using backup water now. It’s far from a catastrophe — the water we’re able to use from other reservoirs is untreated, so we have to boil it to kill the bacteria that might make us ill. I found it remarkable and somewhat heartening to see how quickly we came together to deal with the problem. But for a few days at least, we’ll all have to develop some new habits, put up with some inconvenience, and suffer some economic loss. Will we also stop to think, if only for a moment, that two million of us could have our water supplies and lives affected due to the failure of one pipe? I can imagine much worse scenarios.

The attempted car bomb in Times Square was disruptive in a different way. Little will change, but one can only think the residents of Manhattan had a little chill run up their spine, recalling the impact of terror from 9/11.

In the Gulf of Mexico, a single failure has created a widespread environmental disaster. It will affect the livelihoods of many, and disrupt a sensitive eco-system, likely for many years to come.

Climate Change

We have been talking about climate change for decades now. In the first phase in the 1980′s we began to realize that our domination of nature, through technology and energy was causing a problem. In the second phase by the 2000′s, we realized we had to act immediately to deal with it. Now in the third phase, we are realizing that we have missed our chance to solve the problem and we now also need to take steps to deal with the inevitable consequences.

So let’s consider these current disasters. Needless to say, the events in Boston and New York were trivial compared to the BP Oil Spill. But each stemmed from a single failure of technology that supports our complex infrastructure. Each resulted in a near immediate change in the way we live our lives, whether just for a moment, or perhaps far longer, but change our lives we did. Conveniences and necessities are affected — the impact is greater and longer depending on the scale. Now in 2010, five years after Katerina tore apart New Orleans, the city is beginning to come alive again. It could take years to reverse the impact of the oil spill.

But compared to impacts of climate change that scientists predict, all of these events will be forgotten as blips.

We’re Not Just Surface-dwelling Resource Extractors, We’re People

Take a moment to realize that we survive only when we live as a part of the earth, not just as surface dwelling resource extractors. Our dependence on the proper function of the earth is largely in our hands, and absolutely a matter of life and death. We must take significant action now. Yet we’re dithering on even the most trivial changes.

We can and do come together in times of crisis, and we accept change because we have no other alternative.

The magnitude of the crisis of climate change is vastly larger and longer than any of these current disasters. Yet of course each of these events will cause us to ask, “What could we have done to prevent…” the oil spill, the car bomb, and Boston’s water problem. Committees will investigate. We’ll make changes. These problems are concrete, current, and real.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

The problem with climate change is that it hasn’t really “happened” yet, and never will, in any single event. It is abstract, difficult to measure, and hard to tie to any given event. It’s only in the aggregate … after we start seeing patterns (or see something more dramatic and visual), that climate change will become real to most people.

I fear that as we try to figure out how to prevent oil spills, bombs, and water failure, we are missing the much bigger opportunity to take action. If we reconnect with nature, and look around, perhaps it would be evident that the way to stop oil spills is to find a different form of energy. I fully recognize that this will not happen overnight. But I think we under-estimate ourselves if we say that we can make change happen overnight, or even in 10 years.

We’re pretty good at responding to problems. But we’re terrible at doing what it takes to prevent them. Take a moment to think how powerful nature is, on this lovely spring day, and join in the movement of people who are willing to take action and understand that we need to deal with climate change.

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…)