Five Percent: Conserve Energy

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.

(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…)

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.

There’s a kind of plastic packaging that I have injured myself with several times. This is intentional on the part of marketers — when packaged for retail, shoplifting is much harder.

But I buy a lot of stuff online. (In fact, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I enter almost any big-box retail store. They never have what I need, they try to sell me junk I don’t need, and I occasionally settle for an inferior alternative to what I want out of frustration.) Why can’t the five percent of items needed for retail display be packaged in this way, and the rest be packaged efficiently? (more…)

My recent windfall from the water company reminded me that I could not possibly have known how much water I was using. I am not so tied in to our heating bill. I am very aware of my electricity bill. I am aware of my vehicle usage. They are all important—why the difference?

When it’s in your face, it’s harder to ignore

I have some proposed solutions that should help get our consumption in our faces. (more…)