Greatest good

November 5, 2009 at 11:29 am (Energy, Food security, carbon budget, green living)

global warmingI realized the other day that the next realistic steps my household might take to reduce carbon emissions are to carpool more (we commute to work together but could add up to 2 more people in our car) and to move to geothermal heat.

Geothermal systems – even with the rebates – would probably cost $15,000. That’s a ton of money. Even supposing we had $15K to spend on a system (and that’s a big “if”), would it be the best way to spend it? What would truly be the most carbon-reduction-bang for fifteen thousand bucks?

Some initial ideas:

  • Help 15 households insulate their attics to R-60
  • Buy super-efficient furnaces for several households
  • Help 3-5 farmers build hoophouses to produce local veggies through the winter
  • Invest in a “neighborhood energy startup” with a gasifier (makes heat and electricity and biodiesel), possibly with a permaculture system of greenhouses, coppice groves, etc.
  • Just buy land and start a coppice grove for sustainable heating fuel production, and possibly invest in a pelletizer
  • Some kind of education program? I’m thinking the actual return is hard to measure, and it’s not education about global warming that folks around here lack.

Anyone have data on any of these? Or other ideas? bonus points for things that are done once and keep on saving energy and reducing emissions without any further attention or work.

10 Comments

How we save energy

June 5, 2009 at 4:44 pm (Energy, carbon budget, green living)

global warmingI thought I’d list thethings we do as a matter of course to save energy. You can use this list as a resource, an inspiration, or ignore it completely; just please don’t use it as a springboard for guilt, unless guilt actually motivates you to change.And especially don’t guilt-trip if you’re un/underemployed and just trying to get food on the table.

But if you can put aside a few extra bucks, a lot of this stuff gets at 30% tax rebate until 2010, so now’s a great time to make some of these changes. I’d dearly love it if you would find one or more things on this list that make you think, “Hey, I could do that” and then take 3-6 months to work it into your daily life. If you really commit to doing just one or two at a time, five years from now, you’ll be doing all this and more and it won’t even seem like a drudge.

I do recommend writing out all you do to save energy, though. It sure surprised me to write all this out…it’s become so natural that I don’t even think about it any more.

And please, won’t someone write the “Energy Savings 102″ book? It seems like lots of people say “change your lightbulbs” or “throw away your fridge and furnace” but there’s not a lot out there describing realistic steps to take in between. Well, maybe this is the beginning of that list, and y’all can add your own comments of additional steps to take.

Details, details… Read the rest of this entry »

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Carbon Budget – Year in Review

June 4, 2009 at 7:45 pm (Changing habits, Energy, carbon budget, green living)


Goal: 10.25 tonnes
Actual: 14 tonnes

Well, we missed our goal. By a *lot*. We used only about 1 tonne less carbon than last year, so far as I can tell from my less-than-perfect recordkeeping for 2007-08. I’m not happy about it, and I’m not making excuses. I am looking for reasons, though, and ways to cut. But I also feel like we’ve hit a plateau, and it’s going to take some oomph and hard decisions to further reduce our carbon output.

Goal Used June 2008-May 2009 Conversion factor Carbon emitted US Ave* Our use as % of US Ave**
Gasoline 300 gal 581 (26,000 miles) 19.35 lb/mi 11,244 lb 1000 gal 58%
Air travel 9500 mi 6715 mi 0.55 lb/mi 3693 lb 2400 mi 280%
Electricity 4500 kwh 4970 kwh 1.4 lb/kwh 6958 lb 11,000 kwh 45%
Propane 400 gal 689 gal 12.7 lb/gal 8750 lb 1100 gal 63%
Wood 1 cord 1 cord 150 lb/cord 150 lb ? ?
Total carbon emissions 10.25 tonnes 14 tonnes 2205 lb/tonne 24,084 lb 22.7 t 48%

* per household, or for 2 people
**  Every place you look will tell you a different number for average US carbon emissions per household. To get the average figure of 22.7 tonnes, I used the same conversion factors I used for us and applied them to the US averages I found.

Agonizing detail, including several surprising ways we reduced our impact, after the cut… Read the rest of this entry »

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One Stone Carbon Challenge

March 8, 2009 at 7:32 pm (Changing habits, Energy, You must try this, carbon budget, green living)

global warmingIf you read this blog, you’re probably familiar with the idea of global warming, and you know that it is going to have serious effects in the coming decades (see this image only if you want to be depressed). You may also know that scientists are suggesting there is a “point of no return” where we won’t be able to stop or reverse global warming. This point is usually described as a ratio of how much carbon (or more accurately, carbon equivalent[1]) is in the atmosphere. There’s some debate about the exact number, but somewhere between 300 ppm and 450 ppm is considered the “safer” level that will prevent the worst of the effects.

Individual people can have a lot of impact on the total CO2 emissions dumped into the atmosphere. The average American household dumps 18 tonnes of carbon equivalents into the air every year. The sustainable level of carbon emissions – that is, the level that every person in the world could emit and keep the greenhouse effect from worsening beyond the point of no return – is one tonne per person per year [source].

If that sounds like a pretty big drop, well…it is. There’s a group of folks who are committing to make that reduction within a year. They’re calling it the Riot4Austerity, and I take my hat off to them for their bold undertaking, and I hope to reduce my carbon to at least 75% below American average in the next 2 years.

But for me, right now, it’s just too much to change all at once. Anyone else out there feel the same way?

I wanted to come up with a more manageable “chunk” to whittle away at, and I wanted to know the relative merits of various actions. Take the bus for 45 minutes or drive 5 miles? Eat 100% local or go vegetarian? Give up the hair dryer or turn off the A/C? Give up my car, or airplane flights? If I can do one thing to reduce my footprint today, which thing should it be? If I can’t give up my car, how else can I make up the difference?

onestoneAnd so, I bring you the One Stone Carbon Challenge. The basic premise is simple: I’ve created a list of activities which produce, on average, one stone (14 lb) of carbon emissions. You choose activities that prevent 14 pounds of carbon equivalent from entering the atmosphere, and you mark one stone off this chart (200Kb PNG). When you’ve crossed off the 157 stones on the chart, you’ve prevented one tonne of carbon pollution.

I’m putting the detailed calculations on a static page, here, to prevent any further clogging of people’s feed readers.

So, let’s make this a formal Challenge, in best blogging fashion. The One Stone Carbon Challenge runs from now until May 1, 2009. Comment below and tell us:

  1. That you’re participating
  2. Your goal – how many stones will you reduce by May 1?
  3. If you like, tell us your current carbon footprint, and at the end, recalculate your footprint and tell us the difference. Feel free to skip this if it sounds too much like a Weight Watchers weigh-in. ;)

Feel free to snag the icon above to post on your blog, for thems what like badges.

I’ll check back in on May 1!

9 Comments

Depressing climate news and call to action

March 3, 2009 at 8:11 pm (Changing habits, Energy, green living)

desertDid you see this article in New Scientist magazine? And the map that goes with it? They give a prediction of what the world may look like in the next 50-100 years. We’re talking in my lifetime, the Lower 48 could be so arid they’d only be able to support wind farms, and the entire remaining population of the world would have to move to the Arctic or Antarctic.

It’s a given that the average world temp will rise 2*C before it can possibly start heading back down. The big question is, how much will it rise? Four degrees (the rise this model is predicated upon) is a pretty conservative estimate. I’m not sure how conservative or drastic the interpretation of “what would happen if the temp rises 4*” is; I’ll admit, this looks pretty severe. But just because it’s severe doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this yesterday. I went around in circles from despair to denial to hopelessness to furious determination and back. And where I’ve landed at the moment is this:

  1. I’m praying the predictions are wrong
  2. I am going to take as much action as I can to reduce my carbon emissions. My personal goal is to reduce my household’s carbon output from 12.7 tons per year to 6 tons per year by June, 2010, with additional steps after that.
  3. I’m asking every person in this blog to commit to reducing their own emissions by 10-20% in the coming year. I will be posting my One Stone Carbon Reduction Challenge within one week. This will give you a roadmap to reducing your carbon footprint in a very meaningful way that will let you see results right away. Think of it as Weight Watchers “points” for carbon emissions.

Every single one of us needs to take the strongest actions possible to reduce our personal carbon emissions impacts, starting right now. I’ve been writing this blog for over a year and have consciously taken the editorial stance of Cheerleader. But I’m afraid my inner Drill Sergeant is going to come out now. We do not have ten years to get started. We do not have time for happy, hand-held baby steps.

Yes, we should have started years ago. Yes, we need government regulation. Yes, China and India need to make changes, too. But dammit, we are the richest, most wasteful country in the world and we need to clean up our own personal acts right now.

Here’s your homework for tonight: go figure out your carbon footprint. Try one or more of the following:

11 Comments

Project help?

January 28, 2009 at 11:45 am (Changing habits, Energy, carbon budget, green living)

Hey, folks-

I’m hatching my next project – sort of a carbon-reduction challenge for those of us not yet ready to go for the 90% reduction levels of the Riot 4 Austerity. I could use a few more pairs of eyes to check my math and help me figure out a few calculations.

If you’re interested in helping out with a couple hours of research and middle-complexity math calculations, drop me a comment. The final product will be available here for free, and your contribution will of course be cited. :

Emily

2 Comments

More about propane

January 3, 2009 at 11:17 am (Energy, carbon budget)

thermometerLast year and this year, we got propane fill-ups in early November and right around New Years. Yesterday’s fill up was 330 gallons; last year’s was 327. This year was colder, though; 2448 heating degree days* as opposed to 2173. So we have, overall, used a bit less propane per heating degree day: 0.13 gallons vs. 0.15 gallons. That means that on Jan. 1, which had 45 heating degree days, we saved 0.9 gallons of propane over last year. That’s almost $2 saved. At this rate, we’d probably save 135 gallons of propane and $300 (minus the price of wood – about $50 so far this year) over the course of the winter.

We’ll see if fixing the leak has a noticeable difference. We’d normally get another fill-up the last week of February, so I’ll update at that point how we’re doing.

* Heating degree days (definition) can be found if you go to the Weather Underground forecast page for your town, scroll down to “Yesterday’s Official Weather and Almanac” and look for “Since July 1 heating degree days.” There’s also a column for normal and last year.

2 Comments

Propane consternation

December 29, 2008 at 10:46 pm (Energy)

thermometerWell, despite all the efforts we’ve made this fall and winter, it looks like we’re going through propane at the same rate as in previous years. Maybe…maybe even faster? This makes no sense. We’ve:

  • Turned the thermostat down 3 degrees (63 when we’re here and awake; 57 at night; 55 when we’re gone)
  • Put in a fireplace insert, which should prevent a ton of heat from going up the chimney (we no longer feel drafts when it gets windy)
  • Used the fireplace for heat a couple days a week – the furnace only comes on for a few hours overnight

I went out to check the level of propane in the tank yesterday. I know we got fill-ups at roughly the same time this November and last November, and we got a fill-up Dec. 31 of last year when the tank was around 20% full. AND the number of heating degree days has been about the same (do not mess with me, for I am the spreadsheet goddess…), so I expected the tank would be at around 30% full, or possibly even 35%.

It was at 22%. And I smelled propane.

*sigh*

The propane guy was out literally fifteen minutes later, and yes, the valve on the top was loose. He tightened it down and will be back with some more sophisticated testing equipment to be sure there isn’t more of a leak. I’m really hoping this will take care of it; it feels like we’ve done a lot to reduce our propane usage and I’ll be really disappointed if everything we’ve done truly has so little effect.

3 Comments

She wrote it so I don’t have to

November 21, 2008 at 4:53 pm (Energy)

I was very interested to see Peak Oil Hausfrau’s introduction to the problems of burning wood for fuel today. The short version: If we run out of oil and turn to wood for heat and cooking fuel, what will happen to the landscape? How much pollution will that create?

I am looking forward to tomorrow’s installment, where she’ll discuss solutions. And man, do I wish I had access to a woodlot. I don’t, but I wonder if I could work with some neighbors to start working on sustainable fuel farms?

3 Comments

Fireplace upadate

November 20, 2008 at 10:13 am (Changing habits, Energy, green living)
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fireplaceWe’ve been using the fireplace a lot so far this fall. I’d guess we’ve used it as our primary heat source every weekend day we’ve been home, and 50-75% of the weeknights we’re home for more than 2-3 hours. We let the furnace come on during the night and first thing in the morning.

So how’s it going? First of all, we are keeping the thermostat about 4 degrees cooler than we’ve ever done before and it doesn’t feel any colder in the house. I attribute this change to the insert’s design: it seals the chimney flue completely, whether there’s a fire going or not. We’re simply not losing as much heat up the chimney. So now we keep our “at home and awake” temp at 63 or 64 degrees and we feel as warm as last year’s 66-67 degree setting. Overnight temp is 57 degrees instead of 61; morning temp is 59 degrees instead of 62-63 (and we might actually take that down a notch).

It’s taking some adjustment to the way wood heats: unevenly. (Read on…) Read the rest of this entry »

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