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?

In a couple cases recently, I have heard people talking about how the Jevons Paradox will undermine efforts to use energy more efficiently — and it certainly seems like it would fit, but it doesn’t apply to our current energy problems for several reasons: conservation, and improved efficiency are still our best options.

Or, so started a post that I began writing a couple weeks ago. Then, in some sort of karmic mind-meld, Peter Troast at EnergyCircle.com wrote a post about Jevons, with almost the same conclusion as I was going to draw. Yeah, right, I hear you say.

So anyhoo, I think this topic is important to the larger discussion of energy, especially renewable energy, so here’s a link to Peter’s post on energy efficiency, which already has a nice thread of comments and observations — take a look, it’s a good read — and, add your thoughts!

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.

In the last month, oil prices have been over $80 a barrel — prices were over $86 twice, fell, and are now back on their way up.

Gasoline prices are around $2.80/gallon, up from around $2.00/gallon a year ago and rising a little each week over the last month.

Heating oil cost has risen over the year from $1.40/gallon to around $2.20/gallon.

Natural gas is also up year over year, rising from around $3.50/MMBTU to around $4.00, and volatile, closing over $7 for a few days in the winter.

However, domestic US Coal prices are about even, down a little, this year (from $2.21/MMBTU to $2.14) — I guess the energy we produce at home can be less expensive. Too bad burning coal releases about 2x the CO2 of natural gas (and a great deal more than wind and solar).

How We Respond To Energy Price Changes

But it appears that only energy prices drive our behaviors. We tend to over-react in some ways (markets, producers, consumers), yet have remarkably short memories, and seemingly weak abilities to identify coming changes.

I do understand that many people are negatively affected (more…)

As anyone reading can plainly see, I am clearly more involved in working for and writing for my new company, Energy Circle which is all about home energy efficiency than about writing here on my personal blog.

As it happens, I am continuing to respond to comments and engage in dialog with people who are reading. And given that I just spent an hour writing a response to a comment on one of my posts about cap and trade, and also because there was a related and article on climate change, cap-and-trade, and science by Paul Krugman that you should take the time to read, I figure I should create a short post for all 12 people who still follow the blog.

So there you have it. Read the article, and read and comment on my comment response!

I am beginning to think Jane Fonda is going to reincarnate (sorry, is she still with us?) and create a sequel to The China Syndrome called The Cape Windrome or something. Today the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation recommended that Cape Wind not be approved. Because what, the waves of yesteryear are going to be different? Come on, let’s get a little real, please?

The single most infuriating example of how the United States is sometimes able to undermine even the simplest, most obvious options is being played out in the great saga of Cape Wind. A small array of wind turbines is planned for Cape Cod Bay, generating a substantial amount of power, efficiently, locally and cleanly. But it represents change, and change is bad. Right? (more…)

The Facts of Cap-and-Trade from Clean Energy Works on Vimeo.

Yep. It’s that simple.

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…)

Can I, personally, make a difference in our attempts to reduce or mitigate climate change impacts? Or is this instead a problem that needs to be addressed through policy changes?

At a party last weekend, my friend Mike said he had just bought an electricity monitor based on my recommendation, and admitted it was a gift for his wife — he said that all of our little individual efforts add up to nothing significant. He didn’t really believe that personal action will affect things; his wife does.

I have written down my personal attempts to make change here in this blog, now in my fifth year. Much of what I have done involves making small changes that have indeed added up, so perhaps you might guess that I disagree with Mike’s view. Is it really true that all of the little things I have done add up to nothing?

Yes: the changes I have made add up to nothing.

Even our personal reduction of our energy consumption by almost one half of its former levels (probably more) over these years has resulted in a dramatic reduction of our impact, it means very little. The problem is that we need is to get the other several billions of people living in industrialized countries to make even modest changes. And our governments to concur and set in motion a new set of policies that lead us back to sustainable occupation of the planet.

So why bother making personal changes when a wasteful neighbor (not Mike) undoes our efforts five times over?

The answer lies in how big changes tend to happen. I see myself as part of a movement. I do what I can to make the movement progress.

Mike bought an electricity meter because I had one. Theresa and I have Prius’s now — we bought them to replace our older less efficient cars. We were the first on our street to have a Prius. But we told several neighbors and friends how much we like them (and that they really do get good mileage and are big enough for almost everything). Now our street has nine Prius drivers. Did I cause this — maybe not all of them.

But my personal efforts matter because:

• By making changes, I learn what works and what doesn’t
• My purchases and support of products that enable green choices help make their companies viable
• People see and hear about what I do and a few might start doing things on their own
• I have learned enough to participate in the debates with actual knowledge and facts
• As more people come to see various realities, and understand, they influence their leaders

In short, my personal efforts affect others’. And their actions also affect others. It doesn’t take long to get to billions of people, actually.

I am actively participating in a movement that was underway long before I was part of it. Buying an electricity monitor is just one way that my actions affect others.

Oh, and I pay about $250/month less for energy than I would otherwise.

I expected nothing less of Google PowerMeter — week by week, it continues to improve. Now the graph displays my usage compared to expected use, and includes a visual and numeric accounting of my baseline, “Always On” usage compared to total usage. Here’s what my graph for today looks like:

Three Great Things

The expected usage gives you a nice target, and the comparison to others provides a helpful benchmark.

But the new “Always On” measure provides two very helpful bits of information.

First, the darker bar helps isolate the spikes above. For example, the most obvious repeating spike above is the refrigerator — it cycles on about once per hour and runs for perhaps 25 minutes each time, running at a bit over 200W — it’s easy to see that pattern. (more…)

Google announced today that the TED 5000 (The Energy Detective) will link directly with Google PowerMeter — the TED 5000 scores big!

Update: Tuesday Sept 6^th — TED Firmware page reports that Google PowerMeter software will be available this Friday afternoon.

Who cares? Well, I know that real-time energy monitoring devices make a huge difference in behavior, or at least they can.

And I know utilities are going to get to that smart grid “real soon now” (just as soon as they stop hand-typing my electricity bill). Look, there’s a reason that The Electric Company is the worst property in the game Monopoly®.

But seriously, allowing real people to get themselves hooked in to a larger network of data that Google can collect, analyze and do their usual greatness with should offer a few early-adopter types the chance to show the true power of data aggregation again, this time with electrical power.

The Google Power Meter blog says the functionality is enabled in the latest TED 5000 firmware, so I downloaded it … but I cannot see anything different. I already had the 1.0.214 gateway firmware installed, and now have Footprints 1.0.103 installed (the latest as of 11pm EDT, 10/5/09). But I see nothing. The TED 5000 site says little (although there’s now a screenshot of PowerMeter). The Google Power Meter site says little, and the newsgroup has nothing new posted.

Am I just being impatient? Yes! I want my TED 5000 household electrical use data to be on the web so everyone knows that I don’t line dry my clothes (and they know when, too.) Well, also I want to be an über-energy-geek.

More to come. Soon, I hope!

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…)

As I have become aware of my energy use, I have grown more interested in understanding the details. I have used four methods to measure my electrical use:

1. (actually) reading the electrical bill,
2. using a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure usage of things we plug in,
3. installing a PowerCost Monitor to display total house usage right in our kitchen, and
4. installing a TED 5000 monitor that measures and records our usage in great detail

Each of these methods is effective, and each has resulted in incremental changes. For us, the incremental changes have added up: we now use less than half of the electricity we used to. Everyone can do at least the first of these — I hope I’ll show you why it makes sense to go a step further. (more…)

The Repower America campaign (“We Campaign”) has put up a toll free number that you can call to leave a voice message supporting climate change legislation that will be heard by your Senators: call 1-877-973-7693 (1-877-9REPOWER). Punch in your zip code and leave a voice mail message supporting comprehensive climate change legislation.

I think this is a great idea. I am a big believer in the email campaigns, and all the other great grass-roots stuff that progressive and Internet-savvy organizations are doing. But in the end, there’s nothing like the voice of an actual constituent to make Senators do the right thing. I just made my call. Will you?

We know the climate change bill is going to face stiff resistance in the Senate. Every voice counts, and the voices being heard today are mostly just the ones the oil companies are paying to have heard.

Call now, and write a comment when you’re done.

Free, Blue-line PowerCost Monitor For Best Comment

Special promotion, this post only: I will non-randomly select my favorite comment about why we need a climate change law now and send a free Blue Line Powercost Monitor (used) — this is the one I have been using for almost a year now, and have written about — it’s awesome, and has saved us hundreds of dollars (no kidding). But I got a little present in the mail today that I’ll be writing about soon, so I want to pass the PowerCost Monitor along to someone who cares and could take advantage of it.

Please note: this is not a contest, and I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV. I make no money from this site. So what I just said is probably filled with the opportunity for me to get in trouble. Look, I just want you to make a call and support climate change legislation. No promises. And no lawsuits, please?

Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed in the Times today — he continues to be one of the few money guys I look at and think, “What a smart man he seems to be.”

His editorial piece, titled Greenback Emissions is about fiscal restraint, or the lack thereof, expressed as inflation — the inevitable outcome of deficit spending. His argument is not that we should stop spending (on the contrary), only that we must be wary … cognizant of the what will happen next. Where many proscribe actions, Buffett instead warns our Congress of the likely future outcome.

What struck me as interesting is that Buffett bracketed his editorial with a parallel to the challenge facing Congress with the pending climate legislation. To be fair, this article was not “about” climate change. But the opening and closing phrases were. (more…)